The courses below represent a range of classes I have taught across varying institutional contexts — from small liberal arts college seminars to large lecture courses at R1 universities. Across these settings, my teaching is driven by skills and methods: students leave with concrete tools for listening analytically, conducting ethnographic research, and engaging critically with music as a social practice.
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Undergraduate / Graduate · Co-taught
Playing with Music and AI
How might artificial intelligence enhance human creativity rather than replace it? This course explores the past, present, and future of AI technologies for music. We'll consider how AI impacts musical performance, audience reception, intellectual property rights, the creation and treatment of music as a form of "data," and other legal and ethical concerns. Throughout the semester, students will engage in multidisciplinary group exercises, culminating in hands-on projects of their own choice and design. Projects may draw from across the disciplines of music and computer science, such as engaging with tools for composition and performance; critically listening to AI works; and fine-tuning or developing machine learning prototype models. The course will conclude with a music and AI concert or exhibition. Students of all backgrounds (musical, STEM, and otherwise) are welcome to join!
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Graduate Seminar
Ethnographic Methods
TBD
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Advanced Undergraduate Seminar
Popular Music in the Middle East
Students develop listening and analytical skills specific to music in Turkey, Iran, and Arab-majority societies. We listen closely to indie rock, hip-hop, mahraganat, Arab pop, techno-dabke, and other popular styles. Topics include radio technology in the Egyptian music industry, music and nationalism, class and gender in musical performance, and the pleasures and politics of partying. Culminates in an individual research paper.
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Advanced Seminar (Undergraduate or Graduate)
Collaborative Research in Music Studies (Ethnographic Methods)
An introduction to hands-on, ethnographic approaches to the study of music. Students consider the ethical, legal, interpersonal, and philosophical challenges of writing about the musical lives of others — and ourselves. We work together to design and carry out original ethnographic research projects.
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Introductory Undergraduate Course
Ethnomusicology and the World's Music
An introduction to the discipline of ethnomusicology, focusing on its history, theory, methods, and contemporary critiques. Explores case studies of global popular, vernacular, and classical musics while centering social and cultural analysis. Topics include the "world music" market, ethnographic methods, embodiment, copyright and repatriation, media forms, AI technologies, and the politics of representation.
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Advanced Seminar (Undergraduate or Graduate)
Music and Humanitarianism
Can music be a form of international aid? How do humanitarian interventions inform musical encounters? This course approaches these questions through the ethical and political ambivalence of humanitarian projects in global perspective, from televised fundraisers and music festivals, to international NGO programs and individual experiences of displacement.
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Introductory Undergraduate Course · Fulfills Writing Requirement
Music and Digital Media
Examines the relationship between music and digital media in the 20th and 21st centuries — radio, music videos, mp3s, video games, and streaming. Engages themes of performance, fan culture, copyright, capitalism, surveillance, and climate change across North America, Asia, and North Africa.
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Advanced Undergraduate Course
Music in Displacement
What does displacement sound like? This course introduces students to critical issues in music and migration, with a particular focus on the movements and musical practices of Syrian and Arab refugees since 2011. Students examine how displacement unsettles conventional understandings of the relationship between sound and place, through film, musical repertoire, soundscape recordings, podcasts, and academic literature.
