Priya Parrotta, PhD
historian & musician
for the earth
About
Priya Parrotta is an environmental historian, author, songwriter, singer, composer, and multimedia artist whose work dismantles and transcends borders to unite humans with each other and the more-than-human world. Her area of scholarly expertise is the history of tropical beach tourism. She is also the Founder and Director of Music & the Earth International, an academic and artistic initiative which explores and celebrates the role of music in fostering environmental dialogue across borders. Priya is a Senior Fellow with the Safina Center, a United States Artists Fellowship nominee, and an elected member of the Royal Historical Society.
Priya believes firmly in the possibility of a world in which we are able traverse persistent boundaries, heal from historical injustice, and unite to protect the ecosystems we love. As a scholar, Priya seeks to understand the art and practice of coexistence, amidst the complexities of the modern world. Her first book, The Politics of Coexistence in the Atlantic World, published at the age of twenty-five, explores the ways in which colonial divides in the Caribbean were subverted by the cultural pluralism which so defines this region. She has written a collection of essays, which she uses as a reader in her courses, titled Dream Again: Island Environmentalism through Music. She also recently completed an extensive archival study titled The Paradise Industry: The Making of Waikīkī Beach, 1890-1930, which details how relations of reciprocity in the coastal neighborhood of Waikīkī, Hawai'i, were fractured as a small group of commercial elites created the beach tourism industry in the late Gilded Age.
Priya’s original music draws upon her extensive engagement with music from South Asia, Latin America and the Mediterranean; her training as a classical vocalist; and her natural talent as a soul singer. She has written, sung and produced eight albums which celebrate the diverse connections between humanity and the biosphere. Her songs express environmental critiques, hopes, and calls to action in ways that resonate across geographical, cultural and social divides. Through music, she seeks to support a healing planetary consciousness in our fragmented and anthropocentric world.
Priya was educated in History (Colonialism & Globalization) and Music at Brown University, and briefly studied as a postgrad at the University of Oxford's School of Geography and the Environment. She holds a PhD in History (which she completed in two and a half years) from the University of Aberdeen’s School of Divinity, History and Philosophy. Priya has previously worked for the Smithsonian and the Red Cross, and was a Founding Leader of The Sanctuaries, the first multifaith arts collective in the US. She is the artist/intellectual behind World Vegan Project, dedicated to fostering multiculturalism and decoloniality within the global vegan movement.
Priya is a lifelong Yoga practitioner who seeks to live by the principles of discipline and devotion to peace on this Earth. A multicultural, world citizen with roots in India and Italy, Priya was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and lives in Washington, DC.