Pop Conference 2016

Tavia Nyong’o is Associate Professor in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University. He writes on art, music, politics, culture, and theory. His first book, The Amalgamation Waltz: Race, Performance, and the Ruses of Memory (Minnesota, 2009), won the Errol Hill Award for best book in African American theatre and performance studies. He is completing a study of fabulation in Black aesthetics and embarking on another on queer... Read More →

Sarah Dougher is a writer, educator, and musician from Portland, Oregon. She is currently collaborating with Diane Pecknold on a book about American tween music criticism. She teaches American music cultures and gender studies at Portland State University and at high schools around the Portland area. Last year she had a Fulbright in Norway, and began work on her first volume of poetry.  “Roundtable: Voicing Girlhood in Popular... Read More →

Meghan Drury is a doctoral candidate in the Department of American Studies at the George Washington University. She received a master’s degree in ethnomusicology at UC Riverside, and is currently completing a dissertation entitled “Sonic Affinities: The Middle East in the American Popular Music Imaginary, 1950-2010.” She is managing editor of the Journal of Popular Music Studies. “Voicing the Void: Natacha Atlas... Read More →

Ali Colleen Neff is a media anthropologist who works collaboratively work with young people throughout the Global South. Her first book, Let the World Listen Right, documents the musical cultures of the Mississippi Delta. Her current book project, A Body in Sound: Women, Voice, and Media in Dakar, Senegal, is based on her Mellon/ACLS-funded fieldwork with women pop vocalists. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor... Read More →

Barry Shank is professor and chair of the Department of Comparative Studies at Ohio State University. He is the author of Dissonant Identities: The Rock ‘n’ Scene in Austin, Texas, The Political Force of Musical Beauty and other encounters with the structured feelings of life in America. He has served as President of the US branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. “The Voice in... Read More →