Mark Katz
4 PM | Harkness Chapel Classroom | 11200 Bellflower Road, Cleveland, OH 44106
Public musicology encompasses activities that connect music scholars with audiences outside the academy: blog posts, liner notes and program notes, opinion pieces, preconcert lectures, and podcasts are just a few possibilities. In this talk Mark Katz, John P. Barker Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will explore multiple approaches to public musicology by drawing on his work on and in cultural diplomacy, music technology, and prison music. In this exploration of the joys and challenges of public musicology, he will offer what are perhaps unconventional perspectives. In particular, he recommends leaning into advocacy and activism rather than shying away from them and encourages a process in which scholarship emerges out of public-facing work rather the other way around.
About the speaker:
Mark Katz is John P. Barker Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His most recent book is Rap and Redemption on Death Row (2024), co-authored with incarcerated musician Alim Braxton. His other books include Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music (2004, rev. 2010), Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ (2010); Build: The Power of Hip Hop Diplomacy in a Divided World (2019), and Music and Technology: A Very Short Introduction (2022). He was co-editor of Music, Sound, and Technology in America: A Documentary History (2012) and served as editor of the Journal of the Society for American Music J(2012–15). He is the Founding Director of the U.S. State Department hip hop cultural diplomacy program, Next Level (established 2014). In 2015 Katz was recognized by the Hip-Hop Education Center in its inaugural awards ceremony, and in 2016 he was awarded the Dent Medal by the Royal Musical Association for his contributions to musicology. In 2025 he launched the Carolina Prison Music Initiative, which brings songwriting and performance opportunities into North Carolina’s carceral spaces. He is currently preparing a third edition of his first book, Capturing Sound, and in 2027 will be in residence at Yonsei University in Seoul as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar where he will be researching analog cultures in Korea.
Mark Katz is John P. Barker Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His books include Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music; Build: The Power of Hip Hop Diplomacy in a Divided World; Music and Technology: A Very Short Introduction; and Rap and Redemption on Death Row (co-authored with incarcerated musician Alim Braxton). He is currently at work on a third edition of Capturing Sound.
This event is co-sponsored with the Department of Music.
Click HERE to visit Mark Katz' faculty page.