A scholar working in the
fields of ethnomusicology, folklore studies, popular music studies, and
performance studies, Harris M. Berger is
associate professor of music and associate head in the Department of
Performance Studies at Texas A&M
University. Metal,
Rock, and Jazz: Perception and the Phenomenology of Musical Experience (Wesleyan University Press/University Press of New England, 1999) was his first book, and his articles have appeared in a range of journals which includes Ethnomusicology,
Popular
Music, the Journal of American Folklore, and the Journal
of Folklore Research. He and
Michael
T. Carroll co-edited
Global
Pop, Local Language (University Press of Mississippi, 2003), a
volume on the politics and aesthetics of language choice and
dialect in popular musics around the world. He and
Giovanna P. Del Negro are the authors of Identity
and Everyday Life: Essays
in the Study of Folklore, Music, and Popular Culture (Wesleyan
University Press/University Press of New England, 2004), a
collection of original essays in social and cultural theory.
His
current research projects include a theory monograph titled Stance: A Theory of Affect, Style, and Meaning for Music, Folklore, and Cultural Studies (Wesleyan University Press, forthcoming) and an edited volume on heavy
metal music around the world. "History
of Rock Music," "Music in the
US:
Post Civil War," "Music in World Cultures," and "Performance in World
Cultures" are courses he has taught recently.
Berger and Del
Negro are the editors of the Journal of American
Folklore, and Berger and Annie J. Randall are the
editors of Wesleyan
University
Press's Music/Culture
book series. Currently serving as the
past president of the US Branch of
the
International Association for the Study of Popular Music, he
founded the Popular
Music Section of the Society for Ethnomusicology and served as chair of the
section from 1996 to 2004. Member-at-Large on the Steering
Committee of TAMU's Faculty and Staff Committed to an
Inclusive Campus, Berger is actively involved with diversity issues
at TAMU.
Copyright Harris M. Berger