Projects

Sankt Gentrifizian, part of a series of critical "patron saints" posters around Berlin

onsidering that my “main gig” is to be a music scholar, I thought it would be a good idea to establish a static page on this blog where I could post information on the academic projects I’ve undertaken. The descriptions and discussions of my work are scattered across this blog, but the links below will get you started. Of course, I have other things in the works that I’m not ready to post publicly yet, but these are the things that currently occupy my day-to-day activities.

The Techno Jetset: Tourism, Mobility, and Money in Berlin’s Electronic Dance Music Scenes

This is my post-doctoral project, for which I’m currently doing ethnographic research in Berlin. The project focuses on the relatively recent phenomenon of so-called “Techno Tourism” (i.e., tourism directly connected with Berlin’s electronic dance music scenes), looking at how changes in mobility, flexible labor markets, music circuits, and attitudes about tourism have made Berlin a destination for music-lovers / party-goers.

‘Can You Feel It, Too?’: Affect and Intimacy at Electronic  Events in Paris, Chicago, and Berlin

This was my dissertation thesis (Ph.D. Ethnomusicology), which I wrote and defended in the summer of 2011. When people asked me to describe what my thesis was about, I often replied pithily, “Intimacy on the Dancefloor.” The thesis looked at the ways that norms about stranger-intimacy functioned differently at Electronic Dance Music events, paying attention to the role of music and affect (i.e., feelings, sensations) in creating a sense of belonging in a crowd of strangers.