CV

EDUCATION

PhD in Historical Musicology, Columbia University 2019

Dissertation: “Unmute This: Circulation, Sociality, and Sound in Viral Media”
Advisor – Ellie Hisama

Master of Arts in Music History, University of Washington 2012

Bachelor of Arts in English and Music, University of Chicago 2010

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

Assistant Professor in the Department of Music and the College, University of Chicago 2022-present

Assistant Professor of Musicology, University of Nebraska – Lincoln 2021-2022

Postdoctoral Fellow in Musicology, Washington University in St. Louis 2019-2021

PUBLICATIONS

Edited Collections, Editor

Co-editors Christa Bentley, Kate Galloway, and Paula Harper, Taylor Swift: The Star, The Fans (Routledge – Forthcoming, 2024).

Guest Editor: Special Issue of Twentieth-Century Music

Co-editors K. E. Goldschmitt, Kate Galloway, and Paula Harper, Twentieth-Century Music Special Issue: Listening In: Musical Digital Communities in Public and Private 19.3 (October 2023)

Guest Editor: Special Issue of American Music

Co-editors K. E. Goldschmitt, Kate Galloway, and Paula Harper, American Music Special Issue: Platforms, Labor, and Community in Online Listening 38.2 (Summer 2020)

Peer-Reviewed Articles

“Autoplaying, Unmuting, Attending: (Re)formatting the Twenty-First-Century Digital Sensorium,” Twentieth-Century Music 19.3 (October 2023): 427-443.  

“Receiving, Remixing, Recuperating ‘Rebecca Black – Friday,'” American Music 38.2 (Summer 2020): 217-239.

“‘Unmute This’: Captioning an (audio)visual microgenre,” The Soundtrack 9/1&2 (2017): 7-23.

“BEYONCÉ: Viral Techniques and the Visual Album,” Popular Music and Society 42/1 (February 2019): 61-81.

Reviews and Other Writing

“‘Let me just share my screen’: Perspectives on the Discipline through the Prism of Pandemic Online Conferences,” American Music – Special Issue: Marking Forty Years of American Music 40/4 (2022): 492-497.

“Music in the Digital World” in Oxford Bibliographies in “Music,” ed. Kate van Orden (New York: Oxford University Press, November 2021).

“Interview: ‘So You’ve Been Musically Shamed,’” UC Press Blog, published 15 October 2018.

“‘Sandcastles’ and Beyoncé’s Break,” American Music Review XLVII, No. 2, (Spring 2018).

Review of Carol Vernallis, Unruly Media: YouTube, Music Video, and the New Digital Cinema (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), in Current Musicology 97 (Spring 2014).

Media Appearances and Interviews

Mary Louise Kelly, “What Taylor Swift’s Cultural Impact Looks Like to Fans,” NPR All Things Considered, 19 April 2024.

Pablo Gil Cuevas, “Les Swifties, Ses Ami(e)s Pour La Vie,” Télérama, 17 April 2024.

Laura Martin, “Why You Can’t Get That Terrible The Idol Song Out of Your Head,” Vulture, 23 June 2023.

Caitlin Cruz, “The Enduring Fervor of Gaylor Fan Theory,” Jezebel, 25 March 2022.

Margaret Farrell, “Reckoning with Pop Music’s Villain History,” Nylon, 18 March 2022.

Kyle Kim, “We Compared ‘Taylor’s Version’ Songs with the Original Taylor Swift Albums,” Wall Street Journal,  12 November 2021.

Will Robin, “Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’ and Viral Music with Paula Harper” Sound Expertise podcast S2E7, May 2021.

Yasmine Shemesh, “20 Years After Almost Famous, Has the Idea of the Groupie Changed?” Flare, 14 September 2020.

Jason Koebler, “G/O Media Is Fighting Its Staff Over ‘Objectively Bad’ Autoplay Ads,” Vice, 29 October 2019.

Sydney Urbanek, “Beyoncé’s ‘Rocket’ and the Pleasures of Artistic Freedom,” Much Ado About Cinema, 4 September 2019.

Lena Felton, “Beyoncé Fans Aren’t Happy With Taylor Swift’s Latest Performance,” The Lily, 2 May 2019.

Joe Flaherty, “Somebody Once Told Me,” Down the Rabbit Hole: An Evening of Radio Stories, May 2017.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

2024

  • From Goncharov (1973)(2022) to Zepotha (1987)(2023): Music in Fan-Hallucinated Media
    Music, Media, and Narrative in the Streaming Age Conference
    Munich – June 2024
  • TikTok Formulas, Industry Plants, and Audiojacking: Musical Strategizing on Short-Form Video Platforms
    Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference
    Boston, MA – March 2024

2023

  • “It’s Me, Hi, I’m the Problem It’s Me”: Taylor Swift’s Midnights and TikTok Audio-bait
    Taylor Swift: The Conference Era
    Bloomington, IN – November 2023
  • “It’s Me, Hi, I’m the Problem It’s Me”: Taylor Swift’s Midnights and TikTok Audio-bait
    International Association for the Study of Popular Music – US
    Minneapolis, MN – June 2023
  • “Weird Sensation Feels Good” – ASMR and Sound as Mediator of Technologized Intimacy
    Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference
    Denver, CO – April 2023

2022

  • Never Gonna Give You Up: Digital Afterlives, Memetic Aesthetics, and the Dynamic Perseverance of the Rickroll
    Internet Musicking Conference
    Virtual – May 2022

2021

2020

2019

  • “Going Viral: Sound, Circulation, and Viral Musicking”
    Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting, Bloomington, IN
    November 2019
  • “<loop>: Viral Musicking and the Aesthetics of Contagion”
    Invited Colloquium at Wheaton College, Norton MA
    October 2019
  • “I am no longer looking forward to the weekend”: Hating, Loving, Remixing “Friday”
    IASPM-US annual conference, New Orleans, LA
    March 2019
  • “Sound On: Attention, Autoplaying Video, and the Digital Sensorium”
    Sound and Music in the Prism of Sound Studies conference, CRAL/EHSS, Paris
    January 2019

2018

  • “Viral Musicking”
    Music and the Internet study day, University of Oxford, UK
    December 2018
  • “Viral Musicking; Contagious Listening”
    American Musicological Society
    84th Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX
    November 2018
  • “Hearing #Kaylor: Taylor Swift, Karlie Kloss, and Queer Musical Imaginings of Reputation”
    Fan Studies Network North America conference, DePaul University, Chicago
    October 2018
  • “’Substance and Profundity’: Groupmuse, the Gig Economy, and Classical Music in the 21st Century”
    The Idea of Canon in the Twenty-First Century conference, Smith College, Northampton, MA
    September 2018
  • “’Unmute This’: Autoplaying Video and Vernacular Media Theory”
    Music and the Moving Image XIII, New York University, NY
    May 2018
  • “From Pieces to Listening Practices”
    Musicology in the Age of (Post)Globalization conference, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, NY
    April 2018
  • “Groupmuse, the Gig Economy, and Classical Music in the 21st Century”
    Society for American Music national conference, Kansas City, MO
    March 2018
  • “’I am no longer looking forward to the weekend’: Hating, Loving, Remixing ‘Friday’”
    Society for Cinema and Media Studies annual conference, Toronto, ON
    March 2018

2017

  • “Groupmuse, the Gig Economy, and Classical Music in the 21st-Century”
    Branding ‘Western Music’ Conference, University of Bern, Switzerland
    September 2017
  • “Vocal Power, Vocal Pleasure, and Artifice as Authority in Beyoncé’s ‘Sandcastles'”
    Feminist Theory and Music Conference, San Francisco, CA
    July 2017
  • “‘We We We So Excited’: Hating, Loving, Remixing ‘Friday'”
    Music and the Moving Image XII, New York University, NY
    May 2017

2016

  • “BEYONCÉ: How Viral Techniques Circulated a Visual Album”
    American Musicological Society
    82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC
    November 2016
  • “‘Blank Space’, Fan Creativity, and Social Media Meaning-Making”
    IASPM – UK/Ireland Conference 2016: Creativity: Practice and Praxis, Brighton, UK September 2016
  • “Waking Up in a Post-BEYONCÉ World: How Social Media ‘Techniques of the Now’ Exploded a 2013 Concept Album”
    Music and the Moving Image XI, New York University, NY
    May 2016
  • “‘UNMUTE THIS’: Ubiquitous Listening and Vernacular Media Theory”
    Theorizing the Web, Queens NY
    April 2016
  • “Watching Cell Phones, Listening to Video: Bus Uncle Goes Viral”
    Yale Graduate Music Symposium, New Haven CT
    March 2016

2015

  • “‘Bus Uncle’ and the Mobilization of Sound, Music, and Urban Experience”
    Music on the Move: Sounds and New Mobilities, Paris, France
    December 2015
  • “Waking Up in a Post-BEYONCÉ World: How Social Media ‘Techniques of the Now’ Exploded a 2013 Concept Album”
    International Association for the Study of Popular Music – Canada, Ottawa, CA
    May 2015

2014

  • “Beyoncé’s Body: Hashing Out a Mediated Pop Live”
    Creativity, Circulation and Copyright: Sonic and Visual Media in the Digital Age, Cambridge, UK
    March 2014
  • “Beyoncé’s Body: Hashing Out a Mediated Pop Live”
    Musical Practices – Continuities And Transitions, University of Arts in Belgrade
    April 2014

TEACHING

Divas, Idols, Material Girls: Women in Music Video

University of Chicago
Instructor: Fall 2023, Winter 2024

  • Focusing on music videos featuring standout female performers, students engage with the history and currents of music video scholarship, as well as a range of feminist, critical race, and media theory scholarship; through seminar-style discussions and written assignments students gain competency in applying various critical and analytic lenses to music videos, and translate those skills into their own creative audiovisual outputs as well.

Theories and Aesthetics of Remix

University of Chicago
Instructor: Winter 2023

  • Taking a topical approach, this course uses readings, texts, and practices of remix—in many guises—to explore timely questions of aesthetics, agency, economics, and politics. Assessments include hands-on creative projects using a spectrum of techniques, media, and software.
  • Developed and offered as a sequence with the praxis-based course New Techniques in DJing by Takashi Shallow (Spring 2024).

Music 365/366: Music History and Literature I &II                                                             

University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Instructor: Fall 2021 – Spring 2022

  • Lead music major undergraduates to critically consider the history and canon of Western art music, through guided analyses of primary written and notated texts. Students also interrogate choices made by contemporary performers and musical institutions in performance and perpetuation of music, and major assessments include students’ own contemporary productions and mediations, from academic papers, to podcasts, to model and remixed compositions.

World Music                                                           

University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Instructor: Spring 2022

  • Guide nonmajors to investigate the sounds, settings, and significance of a variety of musical traditions across geography and chronology. Students critically consider the creation and meaning-making of musical traditions both unfamiliar and unfamiliar to them, and engage with those traditions through projects of ethnography and creative information-sharing.

Advanced Graduate Research Methods                                                          

University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Instructor: Fall 2021

  • Introduce second-year DMA students to graduate research and writing methods, including through hands-on projects with archives, databases, and research tools; overviews of scholarly methods and research across multiple disciplines of music studies; and scaffolded workshopping of their own and peers’ writing. Outcomes of the course include a draft of the DMA document proposal, and public-facing translation/mediation of scholarly work into forms such as podcasts, Wikipedia editing projects, and video essays.

Popular Music and American Culture

Washington University in St. Louis
Instructor: Fall 2019 – Spring 2020

  • I lead students to critically consider the history and canon of popular music in American popular culture, in particular through close study of recorded songs and their performers, to comprehend and critique the living workings of that history in contemporary (musical) life.

Sound On: Listening in Digital Culture (First-Year Seminar)

Washington University in St. Louis
Instructor: Fall 2019

  • Drawing on readings in musicology, sound studies, and media theory, as well as hands-on exercises and analyses of students’ lived musical experience, students interrogate familiar experiences and technologies of contemporary listening: from earbuds and mobile devices, to streaming services and social media, to the ambient music of capitalism and the (mediated) persistence of live performance.
  • Responses to both readings and activities are chronicled in the production of a collaborative weekly digital newsletter, as well as in culminating projects by individual students.

Divas, Monsters, Material Girls: Women in Music Video

Columbia University
Instructor: Fall 2017

  • Self-designed course selected and realized through the Columbia Teaching Scholars program, a competitive University-wide initiative for advanced graduate students to create and execute their own courses.
  • Focusing on music videos featuring standout female performers, I led students to engage with the history and currents of music video scholarship, as well as a range of feminist, critical race, and media theory scholarship; through seminar-style discussions and written assignments students gained competency in applying various critical and analytic lenses to music videos.

Music Humanities: Masterpieces of Western Art Music

Columbia University
Instructor: Fall 2014 – Spring 2019
Teaching Assistant: Spring 2013

  • Foster students’ development of critical listening skills.
  • Familiarize students with major works of the western art music repertoire.
  • Equip students with vocabulary to articulate analytical and evaluative arguments regarding music and sound, in oral and written forms.
  • In Fall 2015 and Spring 2016, I implemented the Columbia-developed Mediathread annotation tool in my Music Humanities classes; students used the tool to complete daily annotated listening assignments, as well as a number of larger audiovisually rich essay assignments throughout the semester.

Music V3128: History of Western Music I

Columbia University
Teaching Assistant and Reader: Fall 2013

  • Led weekly discussion sections, in which students investigated the music of the middle ages and early baroque period, primarily through model composition and analysis assignments.
  • Graded and provided feedback on model composition assignments and written analysis assignments.

English 197: Interdisciplinary Writing Program – Writing About Music

University of Washington
Teaching Assistant with primary responsibility for instruction: Fall 2011, Spring 2012

  • As an accompaniment to the Music 120: Introduction to Music course, I led this weekly writing-intensive supplement, developing novel writing prompts and leading students through highly-structured semester-long processes of workshopping, editing, self-assessment and peer review.
  • As an instructor in the Interdisciplinary Writing Program, I participated in a university-wide curriculum of seminars, faculty and peer mentorship, focused on writing pedagogy.

Music 121: The Orchestra

University of Washington
Teaching Assistant with primary responsibility for instruction: Summer 2012

  • In this largely self-designed elective course, I introduced non-music majors to the orchestra as a historical entity and performing force, via a focus on the changing scale, form, and cultural context of the symphony—both genre and institution.

RECOGNITION AND AWARDS

Franke Institute for the Humanities, Faculty Grant (2022)

  • In support of the June 2023 Music and the Internet conference, co-organized with Drs. Stim Gamble and Kate Galloway, hosted at the University of Chicago and online.

Teaching Observation Fellow, Columbia University Department of Music (2017-2018)

  • Worked closely with the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), as well as with an interdisciplinary cohort of graduate students across the University to better design, implement, and assess elements of teaching.
  • Conducted a number of structured teaching observations and consultations in partnership with peers in the TOF program. These observations entailed planning and reflection protocols, executed collaboratively with guidance from the CTL. Activities included peer teaching observations, microteaching sessions, and consultations on syllabi, assignments, and lesson plans.

Invited Panelist, Enabling Productive Music-Analytical Classroom Discussions (November 2016)

  • Presented on fostering effective in-class close readings of audiovisual material, focusing especially on cultivating such skills in early-semester class meetings.
  • Led discussion and hands-on exercises in which attending instructors modeled a variety of class-leading techniques.

Meyerson Award for Excellence in Core Teaching (2016)

Lead Teaching Fellow, Columbia University Department of Music (2015-2016)

  • Developed and ran pedagogy-centered workshops in my home department of music, liaising through the Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL).
    • In Fall 2015, ran a music department workshop on using Mediathread—a Columbia-developed media annotation platform—in Music Humanities courses. After a semester of pioneering the use of this tool for this particular class, presented findings to the body of Music Humanities instructors.
    • In Spring 2016, ran a music department event workshopping writing prompts for Music Humanities, resulting in a compendium of newly-created writing prompts posted to a shared Music Humanities course wiki page.
  • Facilitated greater engagement between graduate students and faculty in the music department and programs and support staff in the CTL.

Certified Participant, Columbia GSAS Innovative Summer Teaching Institute (Summer 2015)

  • Designed and developed several innovative multimedia assignments over the course of the intensive four-day, collaborative, multidisciplinary institute.
  • Developed a pioneering pedagogical use of the Columbia-made annotation tool Mediathread.

GSAS Conference Matching Travel Grant (2015)

  • For travel to IASPM-Canada conference, May 2015

Herbert L. Hutner Fellowship (2014-2015)

Adelyn Peck Scholarship, University of Washington School of Music (2010-2012)

Boeing Fellowship, University of Washington (2010-2011)

F. Champion Ward Travel Grant, University of Chicago (2009)

  • For independent research in England, directed towards BA honors thesis

ACADEMIC SERVICE AND EXPERIENCE

Co-Organizer, Popular Music Study Group Early-Career Symposium (June 2024, 2022)

  • Coordinated registration, writing workshops and professional development panels for this biennial multiday event, in my capacity as Secretary/Treasurer of the study group.

Co-Organizer, Music and the Internet Conference (June 2022)

  • A hybrid, multi-day interdisciplinary conference bringing together over 35 scholars and creators to present across a variety of perspectives on the intersection of music, sound, and online culture, helping to cultivate the developing international network of thinkers at work on these topics.

Chair, Guthrie Prize Committee, IASPM-US (2022)

Executive Committee Member, IASPM-US (2021 – 2022)

Co-Organizer, Taylor Swift Study Day: Eras, Narrative, Digital Music and Media (July 2021)

  • Two-day virtual event bringing together 20 international scholars of varied disciplinary backgrounds and fields for individual presentations and panel discussions. One of the first academic conferences to focus exclusively on Swift. Total audience of over 100 participants.

Guthrie Prize Committee Member, IASPM-US (2021)

Co-founder and Co-Organizer, Music Scholarship at a Distance Virtual Colloquium (March – May 2020)

  • Co-founded a daily virtual colloquium as a forum for sharing music scholarship during the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020.
  • Fostered a robust community of music scholars and scholarship; over 35 papers presented, ranging from junior scholars presenting first conference papers, to senior scholars presenting panels, with audiences of 30-100 per presentation.

Graduate Education Committee, American Musicological Society (2018 – 2020)

Graduate Student Representative, Music Humanities Committee (2017 – 2018)

  • Served as the representative for graduate student interests, input, and concerns on the revision board of the Music Humanities course, part of Columbia College’s Core Curriculum.

Co-Chair, Columbia Music Scholarship Conference (Spring 2017)

  • • Oversaw program committee, planning, and both advanced and day-of execution of Columbia Music Department’s yearly graduate-run conference. The 2017 conference, themed “Music: Order and Disorder” brought together multiple panels of papers spanning musicology, music theory, and ethnomusicology, and featured a keynote by Professor Eric Drott (UT Austin).
  • Supervised publicity, catering, scheduling, and programming.

Reviews Editor, Current Musicology: Issue 99 (Spring 2015)

  • Solicited, managed, and edited book and manuscript reviews for Current Musicology’s Fiftieth Anniversary issue.

Social Media Manager, Columbia Music Scholarship Conference (Spring 2016)

  • Managed and oversaw social media branding, outreach, and publicity for the annual Columbia Student Music Scholarship conference.

Media Coordinator, Women Music Power Symposium (December 2015)

  • Coordinated media outreach for this major symposium, comprising a two-day conference, a concert of new music, and the publication of a Festschrift in honor of Suzanne G. Cusick.
  • Managed and oversaw social media branding, outreach, and publicity for the conference at Columbia University (December 11-12, 2015), including the development of Facebook, Twitter, and other web-based media strategies, and outreach strategies to various print and online outlets.

Social Media Administrator, Current Musicology (2015 – 2017)

  • Launched Current Musicology’s Twitter account (@CMColumbia) in January 2015.
  • Created and curated content for @CMColumbia, growing the account to over 1000 followers.
  • In 2016, supported the launch of the Current Musicology Facebook page.

Editorial Board Member, Current Musicology (2012 – 2013)

  • Evaluated, reviewed, and suggested revisions for article submissions to Current Musicology, Columbia University’s graduate student-run journal.

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

American Musicological Society
Society for American Music
International Association for the Study of Popular Music – US
Association of Internet Researchers
Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Phi Beta Kappa