I’m a third year student in the PhD ethnomusicology program at Columbia University. My areas of study are the U.S., Poland, and the Czech Republic. I am primarily a popular music scholar and am interested in the fine art/pop crossover, pop music avant gardes, popular music criticism, the music industry, technology, audience/reception/fandom and performance.
My Masters thesis addressed the crossover of fine artists into popular music performance in the contemporary New York City indie/dance scene and focused on the musicians Casey Spooner (Fischerspooner), Rob Corradetti (Mixel Pixel) and Lalena Fissure (The Color Guard). It was titled “Fine Art Education and Popular Music: A Crossover of Competence.” Papers derived from this thesis were given at IASPM-US 2006 and the Experience Music Project Pop Conference 2006.
Papers given:
IASPM-US 2008: Myspace is the Message: How a Czech Band Went from Local to Transnational in a 2.0 Minute
EMP2008: Getting Closer: Extreme Loudness and the Body in Pain/Pleasure
SPARK2007: Attention music trogs, snobs, plebes, elites: Bad may be better when writing about popular music
EMP 2007: Selling Sad: How Hot Topic Made the Mall (Safe for the) Miserable
IASPM-US 2006: O Superman: Gender and pop music performance by art-school trained musicians
EMP 2006: Poo pooing pop’s poseurs: An analysis of anxiety around liking art-school trained musicians and their work
EMP2005: Dancing, democracy and kitsch: Poland’s Disco-Polo
EMP2004: The Art of Noise: How the Providence, RI Loft Scene Hears its Godawful Racket
EMP2003: The film remains the same: The making and deconstruction of rock myths in punk music documentaries
Conference Chairs:
ASA2007: Rock Photographs: Bodies and Landscapes
Conference Committees:
Chair, Columbia Music Scholars Conference 2009
Columbia Music Scholars Conference 2008
Experience Music Pop Conference 2007
Academic Publications:
“Dancing, democracy and kitsch: Poland’s Disco-Polo” in Listen Again: A Momentary History of Pop Music (Duke University Press, 2008)
Other Positions:
Student Officer, IASPM-US
Ethnomusicology Center Assistant: 2008-2009
Committee on Electronic Publishing and Open Access, Current Musicology
Instructor, Music Humanities Fall 2007, Spring 2008