Applied Intercultural Arts Research (AIAR) is the first Graduate Interdisciplinary Program (GIDP) designed in collaboration with the University of Arizona College of Fine Arts.
The program prepares graduates with the training and skills needed to conduct intercultural research in the arts, and to consider how knowledge of the arts can be applied to other disciplinary areas to address humanistic, social, and scientific issues affecting our communities and our interconnected world.
AIAR promotes dialogue between interdisciplinary scholars with a primary or secondary research interest related to music, dance, theater, film, visual arts, or other artistic cultural practices. The applied emphasis invites students to imagine how the arts can be used in and beyond academic settings to enhance the health and well-being of individuals, societies, and environments. The intercultural focus trains students to use arts-based research to address issues in ways that take into consideration both cultural diversity and the confluence of multiple cultural perspectives.
Jennie Gubner
The AIAR Program Chair is Jennie Gubner is a socially engaged interdisciplinary scholar, violinist, and visual ethnographer. She holds a PhD from the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology and is a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health. Her research interests include applied approaches to the study of music and dementia and creative aging, intergenerational tango bars as spaces of urban belonging in Buenos Aires, participatory music scenes as vehicles for social activism in South America and Southern Italy, and ethnomusicological filmmaking. She joined the University of Arizona in January 2020 as Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology in the Fred Fox School of Music, and Chair of the Applied Intercultural Arts Research Graduate Interdisciplinary Program.
Through her research, teaching, and mentorship, she looks forward to buildling creative arts-based pathways and collaborations across diverse fields at the University of Arizona and between the university and local communities.