Larissa A. Johnson is a South African audiovisual artist pursuing doctoral studies in Music and
Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Larissa holds a Bachelor of Music from the
South African College of Music where she studied violin with Patrick Goodwin, and umrhubhe , a
rare non-percussive musical mouthbow, with Dizu Plaatjies. Her doctoral dissertation locates the
contemporary acquisition of musical mouthbow practice within a broader movement of indigenous
revivalist performance, and the production and politics of national history in South Africa. Her
scholarly interests include work on/in film and broadcasting in Africa and the diaspora, listening
and subjectivity, and experimental research and pedagogy in the humanities. Larissa is a Benjamin
Franklin PhD fellow, Wolf Humanities Center Graduate Fellow, and director of the 2023 Screening
Scholarship Media Festival at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has been generously
supported by the Fulbright Scholarship and the National Research Foundation of South Africa.
.