CCM announces Shelina Brown as new assistant professor of American music
Brown joins CCM's faculty in Fall 2020
UC College-Conservatory of Music Dean Stanley E. Romanstein has announced the addition of musicologist Shelina Brown to the college’s roster of distinguished faculty members. Brown’s appointment as Assistant Professor of American Music begins on Aug. 15, 2020.
Brown holds an MA and PhD from UCLA’s Department of Musicology. Her primary research project centers on experimental vocal practices and cultural resistance within underground music scenes. Brown’s dissertation project, “Yoko Ono’s Experimental Vocality as Matrixial Borderspace: Theorizing Yoko Ono’s Extended Vocal Technique and her Contributions to the Development of Underground and Popular Vocal Repertoires, 1968-Present,” focused on Yoko Ono’s extended vocal techniques of the late 1960s and early 1970s that came to influence a range of counter-hegemonic vocalists throughout the late 20th century.
Brown’s methodological approach draws upon contemporary feminist psychoanalytical theories, adapting these for the purpose of musical analysis of vocality and gendered subjectivization. In this vein, her theoretical approach to music studies aims to bring feminist psychoanalysis into dialogue with posthuman thought, queer studies and critical race theory.
A Canadian national raised in Kyoto, Japan, Brown also holds a Master’s in Comparative Literature specializing in modern Japanese literature. Prior to commencing studies in musicology, Shelina was employed as a sessional lecturer of modern Japanese literature at the University of Alberta, Canada.
Brown’s article “Scream from the Heart: Yoko Ono’s Rock ’n’ Roll Revolution” has been published in Sheila Whiteley’s compilation, Countercultures and Popular Music (Ashgate, 2014). She is currently preparing an article, “Of Insects and Interstices: Yoko Ono’s Experimental Short Film, Fly (1970) and the Synaesthetic Un-Mapping of the Abstract Female Nude,” which will be forthcoming in 2021. Brown has presented papers at annual meetings including SEM (Society for Ethnomusicology), IASPM (International Association for the Study of Popular Music), AAS (American Association for Asian Studies) and EMP (Experience Music Project).
A long-term participant in underground and independent music scenes, Brown has been active as a vocalist and instrumentalist in several new wave and garage rock bands over the past 10 years. She still maintains close ties to the Los Angeles underground, and looks forward to exploring music scenes across Ohio.
“I send my gratitude to our search committee comprised of Jonathan Kregor (chair), Stefan Fiol, Jeongwon Joe, Matthew Peattie and Shauna Steele for their work in finding CCM’s next great professor of American music,” said Romanstein. “We look forward to welcoming Shelina Brown this fall.”
About CCM
Nationally ranked and internationally renowned, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) is a preeminent institution for the performing and media arts. The school’s educational roots date back to 1867, and a solid, visionary instruction has been at its core since that time.
CCM offers nine degree types (BA, BM, BFA, MFA, MM, MA, AD, DMA, PhD) in nearly 120 possible majors. The synergy created by housing CCM within a comprehensive public university gives the college its unique character and defines its objective: to educate and inspire the whole artist and scholar for positions on the world stage.
CCM’s world-class facilities provide a highly creative and multidisciplinary artistic environment. In 2017, the college completed a $15-million renovation of its major performance spaces, ensuring that CCM’s facilities remain state-of-the-art.
The school’s roster of eminent faculty regularly receives distinguished honors for creative and scholarly work, and its alumni have achieved notable success in the performing and media arts.
For more information about CCM, please visit us online at ccm.uc.edu.
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Featured image at top: The entrance to the CCM Atrium on UC's campus. Photo/UC Creative + Brand.
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