My research revolves around the themes of history (especially reception history and historiography), space and place (especially cultural geography and transnational music), technology and media (especially theory and analysis of the recording), and race and ethnicity (especially whiteness studies). I think about these topics in terms of aesthetics, politics, and history. My main research project focuses on intersections of European jazz and American culture. It asks the basic question, specifically about the dissemination and reception of European jazz in America: what happens when jazz returns "home"? I study the (primarily white) European musicians who came to the United States and argue that this transnational flow of music and musicians did not dissolve racial distinctions. I find that the whiteness of European jazz was accentuated in its meeting with African American culture. I am also a specialist on the jazz history of my native Denmark; and more broadly on Nordic music, especially on 20th century popular music and postwar modernism. My secondary research includes projects on the analysis and theory of space in recorded music and its connection to visual culture and cultural geography; and on sites of memory in jazz and popular music culture. Before beginning my Ph.D. I taught the Sociology of Music and Cultural Studies at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen and was a radio presenter of jazz and classical music at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. I also played, conducted, and wrote a lot of music. 

Educational Background & Specialties
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Educational Background

  • PhD: Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society, University of Minnesota, 2022
  • MA: Musicology, University of Copenhagen, 2012
  • BA: Musicology, University of Copenhagen, 2009

Specialties

  • Musicology
  • Jazz Studies
  • Popular Music Studies
  • Analysis of Recorded Music and Media
  • Music Iconography and Audiovisuality
  • Music Sociology
  • Nordic Music after 1750
  • Transnational Music
  • Historiography and Memory Studies
  • Music and Cultural Theory