Department of Gender, Religion and Critical Studies
Charity Marsh
Professor, Creative Technologies and Interdisciplinary Programs; Director, Humanities Research Institute; Director, Interactive Media and Performance Labs
PhD, MA (York University); BA (University of Ottawa); BMUS (University of Ottawa)
E-mail: charity.marsh@uregina.ca
Pronoun(s): she/her
Website: https://www.charitymarsh.com/biography
Research interests
- Indigenous Hip Hop Cultures
- Popular Music in Canada
- DJ Cultures
- Electronic Dance Music Cultures
- Interactive Media and Performance
- Technology and Gender in Popular Music
- Media Arts
- Arts-Based Community Health
Dr. Charity Marsh (she/her) is Director of the Humanities Research Institute, Director of the Interactive Media and Performance Labs, and Professor in Creative Technologies and Interdisciplinary Programs in the Faculty of Media, Art, & Performance. Marsh is also an Adjunct Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies, and in Computer Science.
From 2007 to 2019 Marsh held a Canada Research Chair in Interactive Media and Popular Music and developed the Interactive Media and Performance (IMP) Labs. Marsh has facilitated workshops on creative audio and digital technologies; curated the Flatland Scratch Seminar and Workshop Series; developed supports with remote communities for sustainable hip hop programming; engaged in numerous collaborative hip hop and interactive media projects with community partners; and continues to host the IMP Labs’ Community Program.
Marsh has published on hip hop cultures, women in popular music, gender and technology, interactive media and performance, digital culture, community radio, and community arts-based education and programming. She is co-editor of We Still Here: Hip Hop in the 49th Parallel (2020), which is the first published collection of scholarly work on hip hop cultures in Canada. Marsh is also co-editing the first edited collection on DJ Cultures in Canada (with M. Hancock), forthcoming with WLU Press in 2023.
Along with her SSHRC-funded project on Global Indigenous Hip Hop Cultures, Marsh’s current research focuses on Girls+ Rock Regina and the impacts of community arts-based initiatives on expanding possibilities for girls, women, and non-binary people. Marsh is director and producer of the award-winning documentary I’m Gonna Play Loud: Girls Rock Regina and the Ripple Effect, which focuses on the musical experiences and impacts of GRR on the adult organizers, musicians, and volunteer women and non-binary folks involved. Marsh has also developed a series of short videos focusing on the youth camps called, When She Plays, We hear the Revolution.
Since the lockdown in March 2020, Dr Marsh has co-hosted the weekly community radio program, Imagine This Music!, along with her children. From this project, Marsh has presented research on community radio as living heritage; created the mixed media art piece, We are a Family (with E. Ruddy) for the 2020 Augmented Reality Exhibition, Queering the Creek; and produced a new audio work for the 2021 International Improv Festival called Imagine This!: Reflections on the Improvisatory Nature of Making Community Radio with Children During the Pandemic (with E. Ruddy).
Selected Works:
I’m Gonna Play Loud: Girls Rock and the Ripple Effect. Documentary 30 min 40 sec, 2021. Director, Producer, Researcher, Writer.
We Still Here: Hip Hop North of the 49th Parallel. McGill/Queen’s Press, 2020. (Co-Edited with Campbell)
“Indigenous and Diaspora Reverberations: Hip Hop in Canada and Canadian Hip Hop. An Introduction,” in We Still Here: Hip Hop North of the 49th Parallel. (Co-eds Marsh and Campbell). McGill/Queen’s University Press. 2020, pp. 3-16. (with M. Campbell)
“Celebration, Resistance, and Action - Beat Nation: Hip Hop as Indigenous Culture,” in We Still Here: Hip Hop North of the 49th Parallel. (Co-eds Marsh and Campbell). McGill/Queen’s University Press. 2020, pp. 46-64.
“The Hip Hop We See. The Hip Hop We Do.: Powerful and Fierce Women in Hip Hop in Canada,” in We Still Here: Hip Hop North of the 49th Parallel. (Co-eds Marsh and Campbell). McGill/Queen’s University Press. 2020, pp. 221-242.
“When She Plays We Hear A Revolution: Girls Rock Regina - A Feminist Intervention,” in IASPM Journal of Popular Music 8/1. Fall 2018, pp. 88-102.
“In the Middle of Nowhere: Little Miss Higgins Sings the Blues in Nokomis, Saskatchewan,” in Mind the Gap: Saskatchewan’s Cultural Spaces. Eds. R Rogers and C. Ramsay, Regina: University of Regina Press, 2014, pp. 413-441.
“Hip Hop as Methodology: Ways of Knowing,” in Canadian Journal of Communication. Vol. 37, 2012, pp. 193-203.
“Bits and Pieces of Truth: Storytelling, Identity, and Hip Hop in Saskatchewan,” in Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada: Echoes and Exchanges. Eds. A. Hoefnagels and B. Diamond. Montreal/ Kingston: McGill/ Queen’s University Press, 2012, pp. 346-371.
“Keepin’ it Real?: Masculinity, Race, and Media Representations of (Gangsta’ Rap in) Regina,” in Making it Like a Man: Masculinities in Canadian Arts and Culture. Ed. C. Ramsay. Wilfred Laurier Press. Spring 2011, 149-170.
“What it feels like for a girl: Metaphor, Transgression, and the Triumph of Madonna’s Imaginary Cyborgs,” Reprint in Canadian Perspectives in Sexuality Studies. Ed. D. Naugler. Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 340-348.
“Don’t Call Me Eskimo: The Politics of Hip Hop Culture in Nunavut,” In MUSICultures: The Canadian Journal for Traditional Music. Fall, 2010, pp. 110-129.
“The Nature/Culture Binary Opposition Dismantled in the Music of Madonna and Björk,” Reprint in Cultural Studies: An Anthology. Ed. Michael Ryan. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008, pp. 850-866.
“‘Understand Us Before You End Us’: Regulation, Governmentality, and the Confessional Practices of Raving Bodies,” In Popular Music. (Vol. 25/3), Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 415-430.
From 2007 to 2019 Marsh held a Canada Research Chair in Interactive Media and Popular Music and developed the Interactive Media and Performance (IMP) Labs. Marsh has facilitated workshops on creative audio and digital technologies; curated the Flatland Scratch Seminar and Workshop Series; developed supports with remote communities for sustainable hip hop programming; engaged in numerous collaborative hip hop and interactive media projects with community partners; and continues to host the IMP Labs’ Community Program.
Marsh has published on hip hop cultures, women in popular music, gender and technology, interactive media and performance, digital culture, community radio, and community arts-based education and programming. She is co-editor of We Still Here: Hip Hop in the 49th Parallel (2020), which is the first published collection of scholarly work on hip hop cultures in Canada. Marsh is also co-editing the first edited collection on DJ Cultures in Canada (with M. Hancock), forthcoming with WLU Press in 2023.
Along with her SSHRC-funded project on Global Indigenous Hip Hop Cultures, Marsh’s current research focuses on Girls+ Rock Regina and the impacts of community arts-based initiatives on expanding possibilities for girls, women, and non-binary people. Marsh is director and producer of the award-winning documentary I’m Gonna Play Loud: Girls Rock Regina and the Ripple Effect, which focuses on the musical experiences and impacts of GRR on the adult organizers, musicians, and volunteer women and non-binary folks involved. Marsh has also developed a series of short videos focusing on the youth camps called, When She Plays, We hear the Revolution.
Since the lockdown in March 2020, Dr Marsh has co-hosted the weekly community radio program, Imagine This Music!, along with her children. From this project, Marsh has presented research on community radio as living heritage; created the mixed media art piece, We are a Family (with E. Ruddy) for the 2020 Augmented Reality Exhibition, Queering the Creek; and produced a new audio work for the 2021 International Improv Festival called Imagine This!: Reflections on the Improvisatory Nature of Making Community Radio with Children During the Pandemic (with E. Ruddy).
Selected Works:
I’m Gonna Play Loud: Girls Rock and the Ripple Effect. Documentary 30 min 40 sec, 2021. Director, Producer, Researcher, Writer.
We Still Here: Hip Hop North of the 49th Parallel. McGill/Queen’s Press, 2020. (Co-Edited with Campbell)
“Indigenous and Diaspora Reverberations: Hip Hop in Canada and Canadian Hip Hop. An Introduction,” in We Still Here: Hip Hop North of the 49th Parallel. (Co-eds Marsh and Campbell). McGill/Queen’s University Press. 2020, pp. 3-16. (with M. Campbell)
“Celebration, Resistance, and Action - Beat Nation: Hip Hop as Indigenous Culture,” in We Still Here: Hip Hop North of the 49th Parallel. (Co-eds Marsh and Campbell). McGill/Queen’s University Press. 2020, pp. 46-64.
“The Hip Hop We See. The Hip Hop We Do.: Powerful and Fierce Women in Hip Hop in Canada,” in We Still Here: Hip Hop North of the 49th Parallel. (Co-eds Marsh and Campbell). McGill/Queen’s University Press. 2020, pp. 221-242.
“When She Plays We Hear A Revolution: Girls Rock Regina - A Feminist Intervention,” in IASPM Journal of Popular Music 8/1. Fall 2018, pp. 88-102.
“In the Middle of Nowhere: Little Miss Higgins Sings the Blues in Nokomis, Saskatchewan,” in Mind the Gap: Saskatchewan’s Cultural Spaces. Eds. R Rogers and C. Ramsay, Regina: University of Regina Press, 2014, pp. 413-441.
“Hip Hop as Methodology: Ways of Knowing,” in Canadian Journal of Communication. Vol. 37, 2012, pp. 193-203.
“Bits and Pieces of Truth: Storytelling, Identity, and Hip Hop in Saskatchewan,” in Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada: Echoes and Exchanges. Eds. A. Hoefnagels and B. Diamond. Montreal/ Kingston: McGill/ Queen’s University Press, 2012, pp. 346-371.
“Keepin’ it Real?: Masculinity, Race, and Media Representations of (Gangsta’ Rap in) Regina,” in Making it Like a Man: Masculinities in Canadian Arts and Culture. Ed. C. Ramsay. Wilfred Laurier Press. Spring 2011, 149-170.
“What it feels like for a girl: Metaphor, Transgression, and the Triumph of Madonna’s Imaginary Cyborgs,” Reprint in Canadian Perspectives in Sexuality Studies. Ed. D. Naugler. Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 340-348.
“Don’t Call Me Eskimo: The Politics of Hip Hop Culture in Nunavut,” In MUSICultures: The Canadian Journal for Traditional Music. Fall, 2010, pp. 110-129.
“The Nature/Culture Binary Opposition Dismantled in the Music of Madonna and Björk,” Reprint in Cultural Studies: An Anthology. Ed. Michael Ryan. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008, pp. 850-866.
“‘Understand Us Before You End Us’: Regulation, Governmentality, and the Confessional Practices of Raving Bodies,” In Popular Music. (Vol. 25/3), Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 415-430.