Education: |
I received a B.A. in Literature from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah (my hometown). In 2004 during my senior year of college, I was selected and became a member of the first cohort of McNair Scholars in the state of Utah. McNair is family and I’ll forever be in debt to the Program.
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Research
Interests: |
In general, my research strives to examine the role that country music plays in the construction of popular perceptions of American culture, class, and social hierarchy. Within this field of inquiry, I have four main areas of interest: first, drawing from the work of sociologist Michelle Lamont, I’m interested in the way country music songs and videos present alternative standards of self-worth and social status based on moral and cultural criteria as opposed to more traditional standards which are centrally defined by income and education level. Second, I would like to investigate the role country music has played in the mapping of America’s political terrain. This includes looking at how the genre and its industry have served to galvanize, construct, and articulate particular political identities, specifically, ones related to conservative populism and the so called “culture war.” Third, I’m interested in looking at country music’s role in the production of an ethnicized whiteness (i.e. a brand of whiteness that presents itself as being somehow marginal and middle-class at the same time). Lastly, I’m interested in examining the political economy of the country music industry and its attendant radio and video networks in attempt to understand how the highly centralized corporate structure of the industry affects the production, selection, and presentation of the genre’s cultural products. A sub-interest I’m currently exploring is a conducting a comparative analysis of U.S. country music and Mexican country music (and U.S.-Mexican border music) such as Tejano, Conjunto, Banda, Narcocorridos.
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Conferences: |
At both the Working Class Studies Association Conference at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota (June, 2007) and at the BINACOM “Encuentro” which took place in Mexicali, Mexico (October, 2007), I presented a project I continue to develop titled “Something to Be Proud Of: The Irony of Class Consciousness in Contemporary Country.” This coming June (2008), I will be presenting a paper at the “How Class Works Conference” to be held at the State University of New York. |
