The Selma Jeanne Cohen Award aims to encourage graduate student members of the Dance Studies Association (DSA) by recognizing excellence in dance scholarship. Awards are based on the originality of the research, the rigor of the argument, and the clarity of the writing. This year, Ohio State Dance Ph.D. Student Emily Kaniuka won the award for "'You’re Not One of Us!’: Hardcore Punk’s Digital (Im)mobilities,” presented virtually during New Mobilities 'on the Turn'? 

“’You’re not one of us!’: Hardcore punk’s digital (im)mobilities”charts the evolution of hardcore punk from its origins in the 1980s to contemporary American scenes with their regional specificities and variances," says Selma Jeanne Cohen review committee - Ellen Gerdes, Sylvie Vitaglione, and David Tenorio. "This paper examines what happens when punk moves from the margins to the mainstream – in this case from floors and stages to the screens of Tiktok, Instagram, and YouTube. The author argues that the various recording and sharing technologies in today’s punk scene have established digital connections but have also “galvanized a collateral shift in both moshing techniques and community identity.” As live shows and audiences are filmed, framed, edited and reshaped for a broader audience, the “values of hardcore moshing, namely intensity, strength, and bodily agency” are compromised. Notably, the transmission of moshing technique and the “raw atomic movements” are happening increasingly online, and the performance of this social dance is altered as regional differences are becoming erased. This paper provides a valuable contribution to the study of dance and performance by studying the social impact digital technologies are having on a subculture more often discussed in relation to its music. The argument proposes an illuminating take on the study of movement and social choreographies and presents contemporary punk ideology."