I just defended the dissertation please not right now

This morning I successfully defended my dissertation in a closed meeting with my committee. Massive thanks to my advisors, Lisa Jakelski and Darren Mueller, and committee members, Anaar Desai-Stephens and Andrea Bohlman, for their support throughout this process!

If y'all hear/feel an earthquake it's the Khia Asylum doors shaking!!! open.spotify.com/track/3TWpz0...

CFP: Sounding Things: Props, Material Culture, and Accessories in Popular Music Abstract Deadline: May 1, 2026 Abstract Length: 350–500 words Editors: Kate Galloway, Paxton Haven, and Mike Levine Full call here: drive.google.com/file/d/1mfyd...

I know it’s just a song feature but Gr*cie Abr*ms on Drag Race is straight up homophobic

Post a banger that’s not in English. youtu.be/VCeEEFzVqeA?...

Final copy (pre-defense revisions): done and submitted ✅ Next stop: defense!

Olympic curling has me crashing out a bit, standing in front of my TV shouting “yeah!!!” and “oh!!!” like I’m a middle-aged father watching football

Our deadline is a week from today! Join us in Cleveland this summer!

The brilliant Jessica Swanston Baker is required pregame reading today - on music, language, transmission, power, and the caribbean www.theguardian.com/music/2026/f...

If you ignore the location of this pic I kinda ate here

Members and friends of the AMS Popular Music Study Group: We're now on Discord! Join our channel here: discord.gg/rSZU4zgJ

Needed to read this today as I continue my pre-defense revisions.

PhD here, built a website with other PhDs devoted to organizing PhDs and future well respected people to criticize and comprehend kleptomaniac grifter plagiarist incapacitating machine against-a-i.com

Bluesky is owned by musicology now, I don’t make the rules

Junior scholars and late-stage graduate students in popular music studies! The AMS Popular Music Study Group is now accepting applications for our biannual Junior Scholar Symposium in Cleveland this summer! Read our full call here and please share widely. amspop.wordpress.com/2026/01/19/2...

I've begun to use my social media—Bsky, Insta, FB—on my laptop more so than my phone, to the point where I'm considering deleting at least the latter two apps from my phone. Wondering if this is a sign of A. good mental health and boundaries; B. my approaching 30s; or C. all of the above.

Conchita Wurst steps back from #Eurovision, the year 🇦🇹 is hosting again: ‘My connection to the ESC remains - as part of my history, not as the place for my next steps.’ The singer who dedicated her 2014 win to ‘everyone who believes in a future of peace and freedom’ has left the contest behind.

Meanwhile, at the Rochester NY #DragRace viewing party

Anna Delvey #DragRace guest judge when

Next week’s #DragRace maxi challenge is “QPop” girl groups and idk what that means in Drag Race terms but I really hope they’re referring to real life QPop—Qazaq/Kazakh Pop 🇰🇿 youtu.be/TkNfDWm0hhc?...

*screams in my JPMS article on Afro-Swedishness and the surveillance of (sonic) Blackness in Europe* online.ucpress.edu/jpms/article...

Word incoming #9LC

We brought Stewie (our 16yo beauty) with us to my partner’s family’s house for the holiday. She has a whole new house to explore but she just wants to loaf on the carpet floor.

Cloudbusting Wuthering Heights Wow This Woman’s Work Running Up That Hill The Big Sky
 Sat In Your Lap Babooshka Hounds of Love Suspended in Gaffa

Finished Expedition 33 a few days ago and Maelle’s ending is for ppl who think that inanimate objects have feelings (it’s me I’m ppl)

Now under contract from @manchesterup.bsky.social: PERFORMING QUEER NATIONS on #Eurovision and its narratives of queer, national, European belonging in post-Cold-War Europe bakercatherine.wordpress.com/2025/12/11/p... The history and memory behind where we now are.

“1990–2024” has been doing some beautiful work for me over the past few days

Just submitted the fair copy of my dissertation! “‘United By Music’: Europeanism, Migration, and Belonging through the Eurovision Song Contest, 1990–2024.”

🇳🇱 TV general director: ‘Culture unites, but not at any price.’ 🇪🇸, 🇮🇪, 🇸🇮 also out of #Eurovision 2026, as they said before last delegations’ meeting (🇸🇮 taking that stand first). 🇧🇪, 🇮🇸 to decide in coming days.

Submitting my Ph.D. dissertation on #Eurovision to my committee tomorrow morning. Surely nothing major will happen between now and then...right?

Today is International Day of People with Disability so again I beg that you use Alt Text for all your photos, videos, and GIFs. Not only does it make social media more accessible for folks who use screen readers, it also provides added context to your posts. ❤️

Huge news for Albanian, Canadian, and Albanian-Canadian pop girlies in my top songs of 2025.

My partner and I just watched Pan-Arcticvision (Eurovision for the circumpolar Arctic) and 1. wow I can't wait to teach this and 2. The victorious Sakha Republic's representative Saina's 1998 hit "Hello, Yakutsk" is about to go platinum in our apartment I fear www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rj7...

Get into it #ESC250

Subbed for Honey Meconi’s “Exploring Classical Music” class at the UofR this morning, teaching Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Stellar engagement from the students! Very grateful for so many opportunities to keep my teaching chops up while I’m on fellowship.

I got a little bit too into the Anna Nicole Smith opera in undergrad

Selfie of a lil guy who 1. just got a haircut; and 2. finished writing his dissertation!!!! 15 days until I submit the fair copy and 123 days until my defense. (I know, my institution's conferral deadlines are wonky). In the meantime, catch me in revision hell.

EBU’s “modernising” the fan experience is their attempt to control the fan experience rather than let the fans curate it themselves (as they’ve done for years). More control from above = centralized regulation of which bodies and ideologies are welcome and which are deemed “too political” for ESC.

Hillary Duff’s new single came out ten days ago and it only has 4 million streams on Spotify — gays what are you DOING, lock in

Had lots of fun reprising this lecture for Peter and his students at UC this afternoon! These students (no music majors!) were especially keen to discuss the political possibilities and shortcomings of generic hybridity in/and global popular music markets.

Happy AMS Week! I'll be presenting some dissertation(/future book project?) material on the Race, Nation, and Identity panel on Friday at 4pm. My talk will be of particular interest to folks thinking between popular music studies, global music history, and Afro-diasporic studies.

This *doesn’t* necessarily mean the song contest - could mean the EBU’s wider Eurovision Network of programming and live link-ups. Still interesting in a media space where policy debates have usually just been about protecting the future of ‘Canadian content’ when US media are so popular.

Gaymer posting hours: I finished Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter last night and Wowowowow it was great. Need the 2nd Chapter immediately. Can’t believe I’m just supposed to drop it and start playing the new Pokemon like my whole world wasn’t just rocked by a new (to me) JRPG (which happens often tbf)

Happy AMS Week! I'll be presenting some dissertation(/future book project?) material on the Race, Nation, and Identity panel on Friday at 4pm. My talk will be of particular interest to folks thinking between popular music studies, global music history, and Afro-diasporic studies.

This is my third time on campus this semester and I think that’s beautiful

Delighted to share that my paper at last year's virtual SEM “Crying at the EuroClub: Rainbow Europe, Queer Diasporas, and the Politics of Escapism at the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest” was named the Honorable Mention for SEM's Gender and Sexuality Studies Section's Conference Presentation Prize!

That’s my advisor!!

Remember when North Macedonia tried to send the late great Romani singer Esma Redžepova to Eurovision with a song that glorified the ruling nationalist party’s controversial urban development project? If not (or even if you do for some reason), come hear my paper at SEM on Friday morning!