Eli Namay

  • Graduate Student, Jazz Studies

Originating from a Syrian/Lebanese immigrant community in Charleston, West Virginia, eli namay* (they/them) is an improvising bassist and electronic musician, cultural and political organizer, and PhD candidate in the jazz studies department. 

eli's research theoretically flows from ecological psychology and social ecology perspectives. Borrowing the term from Rami Gabriel, their work develops an "inter-level" synthesis of Marxist-feminist social reproduction theory, psychological and social anthropology, as well as affective neuroscience and neuropsychoanalysis. Utilizing a multi-methodological approach, eli brings together experiential ethnography, person-centered interviewing, and critical historical materialist methods to investigate social-emotional experience in DIY and participatory improvised music spaces. Currently they are geographically focusing on Chicago and Pittsburgh. Informed by experiences in their hometown's DIY punk and metal scenes, as well as in creative music communities in Chicago shaped by Fred Anderson, the AACM, and other grassroots cultural organizers, central to eli's project is the use of participatory series and jam sessions they co-facilitate with other local musicians as field sites for care-oriented, experiential research. 

Musically, eli is interested in the ability of creative and improvisational practices to facilitate emotional attunement and entrainment beyond discrete categories. They often work with liminal perceptual thresholds, and constraints of their own embodied emotional and sensory-motor capacities, in relation to material constraints of their instruments as a basis for generating musical material. They currently organize creative music series and jam sessions in Pittsburgh, host out of town musicians with the fluidly organized collective Pittsburgh Sound Preserve, and regularly work with (free) jazz, Appalachian Folk, Afro-Cuban, noise music, and metal groups and ad hoc improvising units.

eli lived in Chicago from 2008-2020 where they were active in Chicago's creative music, new music, and DIY communities, taught private lessons, and were involved with a wide variety of abolitionist, socialist, and anarchist formations, including work with the Coalition to End Money Bond in Illinois and support work for the 2019 Chicago Teacher's Union strike. eli has written for Midwest Socialist, Cacophony Magazine, and produced various zines for DIY distribution. eli continues to contribute to local egalitarian movement ecology in Pittsburgh, is thankful to have various dear ones in their life, and is fascinated by the development of their twin children (b. May 2023).

For recordings, scores, and more info about projects visit elinamay.org; for info about Open Improvisation Lab (a local participatory free improvisation jam session) and Pittsburgh creative music event calendars, visit pittsburghsoundpreserve.org.

*lowercase intentional; fluid spelling and capitalization welcome

Publications

Conference Papers

  • Namay, Eli. "'Lift Off Judgement': Social-Emotional Experience as Embodied Archive at Open Improvisation Lab." Paper presented at the Society for Ethnomusicology Conference, Bloomington, Indiana, November 5th-8th, 2026. Paper session organized with Colter Harper, Jay Rauch, and Lee Caplan.

  • Namay, Eli. "'Lift Off Judgement': Social-Emotional Experience as Embodied Archive at Open Improvisation Lab." Paper presented at the American Studies Association Conference, Chicago, October 22nd-25th, 2026. Paper session organized with with Colter Harper, Jay Rauch, and Lee Caplan.

  • Namay, Eli. "'Lift Off Judgement': Social-Emotional Experience at Open Improvisation Lab." Paper presented at the Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology Conference, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 17th-18th, 2026.

  • Namay, Eli. "Hold the Space, Grow the Space: Lessons for Creative Music Organizing Strategy from the Velvet Lounge and the AACM." Paper presented at the Society for Ethnomusicology Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, October 23rd-26th, 2025. Paper session organized with Benjamin Barson, Colter Harper, and Samuel Boateng.

  • Namay, Eli. "Improvisational Practice and Embodied Ethics." Paper and experiential round table presented at the Society for Psychological Anthropology Conference, Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, April 3rd-6th, 2025. Experiential Roundtable. Experiential roundtable organized with Elizabeth Nickrenz and Karen Huang.

  • Namay, Eli. "Hold the Space, Grow the Space: Recent Grassroots Organizing Strategies in Chicago Improvised Music Communities." Paper presented at the American Musicological Society Popular Music Study Group pre-conference symposium on Chicago Music Scenes, Chicago, November 13th, 2024.

  • Namay, Eli. "(Re)orienting Improvisation: Ethics, Community, and Alternative Epistemologies of Creative Practice." Paper presented at the Society for Ethnomusicology Conference, Ottawa, October 19th-22nd, 2023. Paper session organized with Benjamin Barson, Jonah Francese, and Varshini Narayanan.

Subdisciplines

Jazz Studies