Advocating for Yourself with Meredith Schweig
“How do I admit to myself that I need to have this conversation with others, every so often.”
Summary of Episode:
Jenn speaks to Meredith Schweig, a Harvard PhD, Fulbright Scholar, and assistant professor of ethnomusicology at Emory University. Meredith talks about the field of ethnomusicology, her interest in East Asia which led her to focus her research on Taiwanese popular music and coincidently marry her best friend, Andres a Taiwanese American. She shares the many challenging encounters she has had from a childhood accident that left her with a vision disorder that she has always felt uncomfortable speaking up about, to enduring a long-distance marriage, pregnancy journey, to the loss of her parents right before the pandemic hit. How her fear of flying and learning to develop a strategy has helped her manage the different spheres she encounters in her life.
One thing is to realize, everyone is struggling in some way, and it is not one size fits all. One person's solution is not another person's solution. Community, maybe the solution for some but feeling entitled to taking space might be the answer for someone else.
About Meredith Schweig:
Meredith Schweig’s research explores twentieth- and twenty-first-century popular musics of East Asia, with a particular emphasis on narrativity, gender, and cultural politics in post-authoritarian Taiwan. She completed her MA and PhD in ethnomusicology at Harvard University, where she also received her BA in Music and East Asian Studies.
An assistant professor of ethnomusicology at Emory, she is currently completing a book about Taiwan's vibrant rap scene. Her second book project refracts questions about vocality, agency, and transmedia storytelling through a study of global pop icon Teresa Teng. She maintains additional research interests in sensory studies, migration studies, disability studies, history of art and architecture, and the museology/musicology nexus.
Episode Resources:
Emory Website / IG / 大嘻哈時代 The Rappers / Yebba October Sky / Renegade Rhymes: Rap Music, Narrative, and Knowledge in Taiwan
