Graduate Student, American Studies
Graduate Student
Michigan State University
David Stowe
Michael Largey
Stephen Rachman
Scott Michaelsen
About
Mike Spencer is a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at Michigan State University. Originally from San Jose, CA, Mike received his B.A. in History from UCLA and M.A. in American Studies from University of Massachusetts, Boston. His major fields of interests are:
1.) Ethnomusicology. Focus on popular music and social movements of the 20th century. Areas include technology and culture; music as/and radicalism; subculture and the politics of representation; and areas of “New Musicology.” Special emphasis on African American popular music (from spirituals to hip hop), particularly the West Coast jazz movement, as well as heavy metal, folk, punk; and on musical phenomena such as censorship, protest, feminism, hate music, consumer use, and intellectual property.
2.) African American Studies. Focus on Modern Black Nationalism and Afrocentrism spanning from "New Negro" to post- 9/11 disaster politics (ex. Hurricane Katrina, the economic decline of 2008); cultural nationalism; Black Power radicalism of the 1960s/ 70s and its relation to music, literature and other popular culture forms; Islam and Eastern religiosity; Afrocentric feminist theory; Third World imperialism and global concepts of Blackness.
3.) Art History. Focus on modernism in early to mid- 20th century California. Areas include architecture and domestic interior spaces (ex. "Case Study" houses, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles Eames' commercial designs), music (jazz and classical), painting (realism, abstract impressionism, hard edge), three- dimensional art (sculpture, assemblage, installation art), photography (ex. Ansel Adams, William Claxton), experimental film (ex. Otto Fischinger, John Witney) noir literature and Beat poetry.
Since coming to MSU Mike has presented papers on these and other subjects at the British Association of American Studies Annual Conference at University of Edinburgh, Scotland, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music- US & Canada Chapters Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, the National Popular Culture & American Studies Associations Conference in New Orleans, LA, and has published in The Journal of Popular Culture (forthcoming) as well as Popular Music & Society.
His dissertation on West Coast jazz after WWII is being overseen by his committee: David Stowe (chair), Mike Largey, Steve Rachman, and Scott Michaelsen. At Michigan State, Mike as taught courses on American radical thought in the Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures department and on entertainment media and popular culture in the American Studies program. In Spring of 2010, he'll be teaching IAH 207- Literatures, Cultures, Identities.
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