coxk4

ASSISTANT SUBJECT LEAD FOR MUSIC

As a musicologist, I find that studying music in its social, political, and cultural contexts provides a dynamic window into humanity, and one of my main professional goals is to instill others with this same thrill of engaging with and thinking critically about music. My field of specialisation is popular music, and I am particularly interested in the intersection between popular music, memory, and emotion. I earned my doctorate in musicology from the University of Michigan, and I hold a bachelor's degree in music from the University of Chicago. I am a contributing author in New Critical Perspectives on the Beatles: Things We Said Today (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and The Beatles in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and I am co-editor of The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper, and the Summer of Love (Lexington, 2017). 


Research and Teaching Specialisations:

British rock of the 1960s-1970s 

Popular Music 

Music, memory, and emotion 

Music and text

20th-century art music 

Musicology 

Ethnomusicology


Education:

PhD, Musicology, University of Michigan

AB, Music, University of Chicago


Major Publications:

Contributing Author:

Cox, Kathryn B. "Psychedelia, Swinging London, and the Summer of Love." The Beatles in Context. Kenneth Womack, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

 

Cox, Kathryn B. "The Road to Rishikesh: The Beatles, India, and Globalized Dialogue in 1967." The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper, and the Summer of Love. Kenneth Womack and Kathryn B. Cox, eds. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2017.

 

Cox, Kathryn B. "Mystery Trips, English Gardens, and Songs Your Mother Should Know: The Beatles and British Nostalgia in 1967." New Critical Perspectives on the Beatles: Things We Said Today. Kenneth Womack and Katie Kapurch, eds. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016.

 

Editor:

Womack, Kenneth and Kathryn B. Cox, eds. The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper, and the Summer of Love. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2017.



Recent Conference Presentations:

"'The Show Must Go On': The Wall and Social Movements 1979-2019." At the International Association for the Study of Popular Music Conference, Daegu, South Korea, July 5-9, 2022 (upcoming).

 

"'Turned On To Indian Music': George Harrison's Wonderwall Music (1968) and the Counterculture." At the New Zealand Musicological Society Conference, University of Auckland, November 28-December 2, 2019.


"From the post-war dream to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Narrating the impact of war in Pink Floyd's The Final Cut (1983)." At the Popular Music and Narrativity Conference, Institute of Musical Research, Senate House, London, June 7, 2019.

 

"'Join Together With the Band': Identity and Belonging in Pete Townshend's Lifehouse Project (1971-2007)." At the International Association for the Study of Popular Music Australia New Zealand Branch Conference, Waikato Institute of Technology, December 3-5, 2018.

 

"Narrating the Unknowable in Pink Floyd's 'When the Tigers Broke Free.'" At the New Zealand Musicological Society Conference, University of Canterbury School of Music, November 30-December 2, 2018.

 

"'Ever Present Past’: Paul McCartney and Nostalgia in the 21st Century." At The Beatles' The White Album: An International Symposium, Monmouth University, November 8-11, 2018.

 

"Words That Go Together Well? Paul McCartney, Lyrics, and Poetry in Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics, 1965-1999." At the English Shared Futures Conference, Newcastle Civic Centre, July 5-7, 2017.

 

"Nostalgic Present, Nostalgic Future: The Beatles and Imagined Time in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." At the Summit of Creativity: Sgt. Pepper Symposium, University of Michigan, June 1-4, 2017.

 

"Trauma, Performance, and Memorialization: Roger Waters Presents Pink Floyd's The Wall (2010-2013) as a Site of Remembrance." At the International Association for the Study of Popular Music-US Branch Conference, Case Western Reserve University, February 23-26, 2017.

 

"'You Didn’t Hear It': Revealing the Traumatic Narrative in the Who's Tommy." At the Song, Screen, and Stage Conference, City University of New York, June 27-30, 2016.

 

"Nostalgia as Rebellion in the Kinks' Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)." At the Joint Conference for the International Association for the Study of Popular Music U.S. Branch and the International Association for the Study of Popular Music Canada Branch. University of Calgary, May 28-30, 2016.

 

"Bricks in the Wall: Repetition and Traumatic Narrative in Pink Floyd's The Wall." at the Joint Conference for the International Association for the Study of Popular Music-Benelux Branch and the International Association for the Study of Popular Music branche francophone d’Europe, University of Liège, Belgium, June 4-6, 2015.

 

"'Showing Feelings of an Almost Human Nature': Traumatic Narrative in Pink Floyd's The Wall." at Deconstructing Popular Music (Studies): International Association for the Study of Popular Music-US Branch Conference, University of Louisville, February 19-22, 2015.

 

 "Transformative Waters: The Sea, the Rain, and Catharsis in the Who's Quadrophenia." At the International Association for the Study of Popular Music Conference U.S. Branch, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, March 13-16, 2014.

 

"Beyond the Lyric: Vocables and Emotional Expression in Paul McCartney's Songs." At the International Beatles Conference, Penn State Altoona, February 6-9, 2014.

 

"English Gardens, Mystery Trips, and Songs Your Mother Should Know: The Beatles and British Nostalgia in 1967." At the International Beatles Conference, Penn State Altoona, February 6-9, 2014.