Research

Keywords: sounds studies, cultural studies, American studies, disability studies, digital cultures, listening, popular music studies, media studies

Monograph

Spectacular Listening: Music and Disability in the Digital Age. Forthcoming at Oxford University Press.

Academic and Peer-Reviewed Articles

“Singing into a Smartphone: The Persuasive Affordances of Karaoke, Auto-Tune, and Lip-Syncing Apps.” Forthcoming in Oxford Handbook of Community Singing.

“All Songs Considered: The Persuasive Listening of Music Podcasts.” Twentieth-Century Music. 19(3). Fall 2022.

“Popular Music Reaction Videos: Reactivity, Creator Labor, and the Performance of Listening Online.” New Media & Society. 23(6). Spring 2020.  

Co-authored with Paul Renfro. “‘This is Not Normal’: Gender, Ability, and Age in the Resistance to Trumpism.” Disability Studies Quarterly. 39(2). Spring 2019. 

“Air Apparent: Amplifying the Politics of Air Guitar, Air Bands, and Air Playing in the United States.” American Quarterly. 70(4). Winter 2018.

“Out of Thin Air: Configurability, Choreography, and the Air Guitar World Championships.” Ethnomusicology. 61(3), pp. 419-445. Fall 2017.          

“Shoes as a Symbol of Romantic Mobility in Zora Neale Hurston’s Jonah’s Gourd Vine.” The Explicator 71(2), pp. 103-106. July 2013.      

“An Aesthetic of Objectification: Kehinde Wiley’s Princess of Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,” Pennsylvania Literary Review, August Issue 2013.

“Crooning, Country, and the Blues: Redefining Masculinity in Popular Music, 1930-1950.” NeoAmericanist 6(1). June 2012.

“‘A Style Applied to Things’: The Aural Improvisation in Langston Hughes’ The Weary Blues.” Criterion 5(1). January 2012.

Popular Press & Media

author, “Listening in Plain Sight: The Enduring Influence of U.S. Air Guitar,” Sounding Out!, June 7, 2021.

featured expert in “Avec les jeunes Américains qui s’ambiancent avec du rap français sur YouTube.” VICE News (France). October 20, 2020.

co-author with Paul Renfro. “Disability is Shaping the 2020 Presidential Race—But Not in the Way That It Should,” CounterPunch, July 28, 2020.

author, “A New Age of Protest Music,” Boston Review, June 22, 2020.

co-author with Paul Renfro, “Vectors of Vulnerability,” Monthly Review, May 20, 2020.

co-author with Paul Renfro, “Why Dismissing President Trump as Mad or Ill is a Big Mistake,” Washington Post, October 4, 2019.

featured expert on “Air Guitar Championship” Segment, The World, Public Radio International, August 13, 2019.

featured expert on “The History of Air Guitar,” Top of Mind with Julie Rose, BYU Radio, July 29, 2019.

featured expert in “An Electrifying History of Air Guitar,” April White, Smithsonian Magazine, July 2019.

curator of Spectacular Listening: U.S. Air Guitar. Exhibit in Orwig Music Library at Brown University. 2019.

author, “How Air Guitar Became a Serious Sport,” The Conversation (Republished by BBC.com, Quartz, Chicago Tribune, and others). April 29, 2019.

featured guest on “Embodying Air Guitar with Sydney Hutchinson and Byrd McDaniel,” Hosted by Trevor Harvey, Ethnomusicology Today, August 28, 2018.

host of public forum, “Karaoke: Global Technology, Local Practice,” in Asian Arts & Culture Center at Towson University. 2017.

guest curator for Karaoke: Asia’s Global Sensation Gallery Exhibit, in Asian Arts & Culture Center at Towson University. 2017.

featured expert in “Air Guitar: From Elaborate Lark to Utopian Gesture,” Matthew Guerrieri, Boston Globe, June 23, 2016.

Presentations & Talks

“Community Building as Research.” Flash Talk at Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools. Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Upcoming April 2023.

“Air Apparent: A History of Popular Music Pantomime.” Invited talk with Music and Media in Everyday Life course (taught by William Cheng). Dartmouth College. October 2021.

“How Music Podcasts Persuasively Model Listening.” Annual Conference for Society for American Music. Virtual Conference. June 2021.

Chair of Panel. “Hearing and Listening in Everyday Life.” Annual Conference for Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Virtual Conference. April 2021.

“All Songs Considered: How Music Podcasts Normalize Modes of Listening to Popular Music.” Annual Conference for Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Virtual Conference. March 2021.

“The Peculiar History of Popular Music Pantomime.” Invited talk with Music and Media in Everyday Life course (taught by William Cheng). Dartmouth College. February 2021.

“The Performance of Listening in Digital Cultures.” Fox Center Response Forum XX. Emory University. January 2021. 

“Strategic Reactions: Creators with Disabilities and the Performance of Listening on YouTube.” Symposium on Music, Mediation, Disability: Representation and Access. Virtual Conference. November 2020.

Co-Chair of Panel with Luis Achondo. “Listening, Sensing, Circulating in Digital Cultures.” Annual Conference for Society for Ethnomusicology. Virtual Conference. October 2020. 

“Listening to Other People Listen: An Analysis of All Songs Considered, Sound Opinions, and Switched on Pop.” Annual Conference for Society for Ethnomusicology. Virtual Conference. October 2020.

“Conducting Fieldwork on Digital Cultures.” Invited talk with Musical Communities of Boston course (taught by Francesca Inglese). Northeastern University. September 2020.

“Reactive Media: The Theory of Listening in Popular Music Reaction Videos.” Annual Conference for Society for American Music. Virtual Conference. July 2020.

Chair of Panel: “From Audience Member to Media Maker: New Modes of Experiencing Media.” Annual Conference for Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Denver, Colorado. April 2020. [conference cancelled due to COVID-19]

“All Songs Considered: How Music Podcasts Normalize Modes of Listening to Popular Music.” Annual Conference for Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Denver, Colorado. April 2020. [conference cancelled due to COVID-19]

“Click to Share!: How Popular Music Reaction Videos Turn Listening into an Expressive Practice.” Invited talk as part of Leading Voices Series. Northeastern University. February 2020.

“Popular Music Reaction Videos: Staging the Body as the Material Site of Music Reception.” Annual Conference for Northeast Chapter of Society for Ethnomusicology. Colby College. Waterville, Maine. March 2019.

“Sympathetic Resonance: Popular Music Reaction Videos, Disability, and the Performance of Media Consumption.” Annual Conference for Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Seattle, Washington. March 2019.

Chair and Organizer of Panel: “Social Listening: Archive, Protest, and Movement.” Annual Conference for Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Seattle, Washington. March 2019.

“Spectacular Listening and the Legibility of Disability in the U.S. Air Guitar Championships.” Annual Conference for Society for Ethnomusicology. Panel Sponsored by the Disability and Deaf Studies Special Interest Group.Albuquerque, New Mexico. November 2018.

“Watch Me Listen: Lip Syncing Videos on Musical.ly.” Interdisciplinary Conference called Rethinking Sound 2018. Hanyang University. Seoul, South Korea. March 2018.

“Embodied Listening: Explorations at the Intersection of Performance Studies, Ethnomusicology, and Theopoetics.” Theopoetics: A Space for Thinkers, Doers, and Makers. Annual Conference for Arts, Religion, Culture. Boston, Massachusetts. March 2018.

“Fluent Transmission: Lip Syncing, Popular Music Reaction Videos, and the Performance of Music Consumption on YouTube.” Annual Conference for Northeast Chapter of Society for Ethnomusicology. Wellesley College. Wellesley, Massachusetts. March 2018.

“Conspicuous Listening: Lip Syncing and the Performance of Popular Music Consumption on YouTube.” Annual Conference for Society for Ethnomusicology. Denver, Colorado. October 2017.

“Bad Singing and Karaoke Virtuosity: Failure and Success at the Providence Boombox.”Annual Conference for Society for Ethnomusicology. Washington D.C.November 2016.

“Pathology, Fandom, and the Origins of Air Guitar.” Annual Conference for Society for American Music. Boston. March 2016.

“Out of Thin Air: Technology, Media, and the Air Guitar World Championships.” Annual Conference for Society for Ethnomusicology. Austin, Texas. December 2015.

“Hip Hop, Ecology, and Climate Change.” Interdisciplinary Conference called Seizing an Alternative: Toward An Ecological Civilization. Claremont Graduate School and Pomona College. Claremont, California. May 2015.

“‘To Air is Human’: Virtual Performance and the International Air Guitar Competition.” Annual CUNY Graduate Students in Music Conference. City University of New York. New York City, New York. April 2015.

“The Legacy of the Minstrel Mask: Race in American Popular Music.” Annual Conference for Montgomery Southern Liberal Arts Conference. Auburn University Montgomery. Montgomery, Alabama. February 2012.

Grants & Awards

Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University. 2020-2021.

Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity Dissemination Grant from the College of Arts, Media and Design at Northeastern University. 2020.

Blanton Owen Fund Award from the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. 2019.

James T. Koetting Prize for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Awarded by Northeast Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology. 2019.

Research Matters Presenter at Brown University. 2019.

Lise Waxer Student Paper Prize Honorable Mention from Popular Music Section of Society for Ethnomusicology. 2017.

Joukowsky Summer Research Award from Brown University (x2). 2014, 2017.

Department of Music Teaching Fellow at Brown University. 2016.

Association for Recorded Sound Collections Research Grant. 2015.

Edgar Lewis Marston Graduate Fellowship at Brown University. 2013-2014.

Outstanding Research by Master’s Student Award in School of Arts and Sciences at University of Alabama. 2013.

Graduate Fellow at University of Alabama. 2011-2012.

Phi Beta Kappa. 2010.

Courses Taught

Great Works Seminar | Listen Closely: Rethinking How We Hear Greatness in Popular Music (Emory University, 2021)

Great Works Seminar | “I Felt Strange, as I Always Do in Georgia”: The Interdisciplinary Humanism of Jean Toomer’s Cane (Emory University, 2020, Co-Taught)

Music and Disability Justice (Northeastern University, 2020)

Musical Communities of Boston (Northeastern University, 2020)

World Music (Northeastern University, 2019)

Music of Asia: From Gamelan to K-Pop (Northeastern University, 2019)

Pop Music Spirituality (The Center for Spirituality & Practice, 2019)

Music, Technology, and Digital Culture (Tufts University, 2017)

East Asian Popular Music (Brown University, 2016)

The Meaning of Mashups (University of Alabama, 2013)