Sonjah Stanley Niaah is a Jamaican scholar, cultural activist and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

. She is known for her work on

dancehall Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially, dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s.Barrow, Steve & Dalton, Peter (2004) "The Rou ...

, old and new Black Atlantic performance geographies, ritual, dance, festivals, cultural and creative industries, as well as popular culture and the sacred.

Education and career

Stanley Niaah has a B.S. from the

University of the West Indies The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in th ...

(1991) and received her diploma in sociology in 1997 from the University of the West Indies. In 2004 she earned a Ph.D. in cultural studies from the University of the West Indies, which made her the first Ph.D. cultural studies graduate from the

. She was also the first to be appointed lecturer, and senior lecturer in Cultural Studies, and in 2015, Stanley Niaah was named director of the Institute of Caribbean Studies and the Reggae Studies Unit. She is also the inaugural Rhodes Trust

Rex Nettleford Ralston Milton "Rex" Nettleford, OM, FIJ, OCC (3 February 1933 – 2 February 2010), was a Jamaican scholar, social critic, choreographer, and Vice-Chancellor Emeritus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), the leading research university ...

Fellow in Cultural Studies.

Work

Stanley Niaah is a Jamaican nationalist and Caribbean regionalist at heart, she is involved in efforts to promote cultural and creative industries, and speaks up for respect for all cultures. She is an advocate for connecting education and music in Jamaica. and has spoken on the actions taken by women to improve their presentation to the public. Her 2010 book on ''Dancehall'' was reviewed by multiple venues, including ''

Caribbean Quarterly ''Caribbean Quarterly'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering studies on the culture of the Caribbean. It is published for the University of the West Indies by Taylor & Francis. It was established in 1949. The editor-in-chief is K ...

'' and ''Caribbean Studies.''

Selected publications

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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stanley Niaah, Sonjah Living people Year of birth missing (living people) University of the West Indies alumni University of the West Indies academics Dancehall 21st-century Jamaican women writers