Featured In, Interviews Andrew Mall Featured In, Interviews Andrew Mall

Taylor-made: A Swiftie’s guide to the best ‘Eras’ movie experience

The Washington Post (2023). Deciding which movie theater to watch the upcoming “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” in might be as difficult as choosing which Swift era you want to represent. The concert film, which will start showing Thursday night, will bring Swifties, concert fans and the general public right into the middle of a Swift concert. And 3,850 theaters across North America are planning to show the film in myriad formats, giving Swifties an array of choices for how they want to experience the concert film.

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Courses Andrew Mall Courses Andrew Mall

Popular Music since 1945

This course introduces students to the study of popular music in the United States from the end of World War II to the present day. Instead of presenting a survey of popular music during this period, we consider a handful of selected topics, themes, and genres during these years. Sacrificing historical breadth for analytical depth enables us to dive deeply into specific examples, considering in detail a range of factors that influence popular music’s development and transformation: ethnic and gender identities, music industry practices, race relations, social and political movements, and technological innovations. Students gain a broad overview of the field of popular music studies—with particular attention given to recently-published research—and the field’s methodologies and materials.

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Courses Andrew Mall Courses Andrew Mall

Musical Communities of Chicago

This course introduces students to the diverse musical communities of Chicago through texts and media, workshops with local musicians and arts workers, experiential activities, and your own research projects. Our five-week program in Chicago provides a unique opportunity for us to explore a range of musical practices and intersecting issues: arts policy, gentrification, tourism, and urban development, among others. Experiential learning activities are a core of our time together in Chicago as we engage in this city’s musical life. These include attending concerts and festivals together, excursions to historical musical sites within Chicago, interviewing local experts, and soundwalks, among others.

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Interviews, Featured In Andrew Mall Interviews, Featured In Andrew Mall

Is K-Pop Finally Mainstream?

Nylon (2023). Look at the biggest songs in the U.S. right now and you'll find a bit of everything: Miley Cyrus’s anthemic pop comeback; SZA’s revenge ruminations; Selena Gomez’s cross-cultural collab with Nigerian singer Rema; and controversial country star Morgan Wallen’s unvanquishable return. At the forefront of the list sits Park Jimin’s “Like Crazy,” the glittery solo debut from BTS’s graceful tenor.

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Interviews, Featured In Andrew Mall Interviews, Featured In Andrew Mall

Why the Most Riveting Scene in Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody Is a Medley from 1994

TIME (2022). Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody, the new biopic from filmmaker Kasi Lemmons, is filled with recreations of the singer’s iconic performances—like her 1991 rendition of the national anthem at the Super Bowl. But the film closes with a scene that pays tribute to one of Houston’s lesser-known appearances: a 1994 performance at the American Music Awards that showcased not only her phenomenal talent, but her range, versatility, and stamina as a live artist.

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Collaborative Ethnography at Furnace Fest: Initial Findings on Affect, Community, and Commerce in Hardcore
Presentations, Guest lectures Andrew Mall Presentations, Guest lectures Andrew Mall

Collaborative Ethnography at Furnace Fest: Initial Findings on Affect, Community, and Commerce in Hardcore

Colloquium presentation (2022). At Furnace Fest (Birmingham, Alabama), attendees travel from across the U.S. and Canada for three days of emo, hardcore, metal, and punk performances. Based on ongoing fieldwork, in this talk I consider what my research collaborators and I have learned so far about working together—both in terms of our research methodologies and in terms of festival organizers and their communities.

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Furnace Fest Community: A Public Conversation
Presentations, Interviews Andrew Mall Presentations, Interviews Andrew Mall

Furnace Fest Community: A Public Conversation

Public research presentation (2022). Prior to Furnace Fest 2022, I helped organize a public conversation as part of an official pre-fest event. The plan was to present some of our initial research findings and moderate a public conversation with the participation of two of Furnace Fest’s organizers and one of the Furnace Fest Community moderators.

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Courses Jenna Reed Courses Jenna Reed

Critical Foundations of Creative Practice Leadership

Creative industries and creative economies are wide-ranging, requiring a diverse array of skills and practices for individuals and organizations to make an impact. While you may not be able to control factors like audience tastes, business trends, entrenched power hierarchies, and the social logic of groups and collectives, you can control your preparedness for these factors and enhance your ability to analyze and respond to historical, contemporary, and upcoming trajectories and changes. In this class we will explore, analyze, and criticize a wide variety of theoretical and empirical frameworks that have been deployed to explain the structures, trends, and disruptions in creative industries.

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(Post-)Christian Hardcore, Community, and Nostalgia at Furnace Fest
Conferences, Presentations Andrew Mall Conferences, Presentations Andrew Mall

(Post-)Christian Hardcore, Community, and Nostalgia at Furnace Fest

Conference presentation (2022). At Furnace Fest 2021 (Birmingham, Alabama), attendees traveled from across the U.S. and Canada for three days of emo, hardcore, and metal performances. Based on ongoing, collaborative fieldwork in the Furnace Fest community, in this paper I build upon prior work that posits festivals as physical places for imagined communities (Mall 2015; cf. Anderson 1991 [1983]) and scenes (Mall 2020) to consider how music festivals, as sensational forms (Meyer 2009), substantiate musical community itself (see, e.g., Shelemay 2011).

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