We are delighted to welcome Dr Alisha Lola Jones to the Faculty as University Lecturer in Music in Contemporary Societies. Dr Jones is currently Assistant Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and faculty director of the Global Pop Music Initiative at Indiana University Bloomington. Named an Innovator by the University of Chicago and Harvard Divinity School, Dr Jones is an ordained preacher as well as an operatic lyric soprano, and has performed around the world. Dr Jones is a board member of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), a member of the strategic planning task force for the American Musicological Society (AMS), and a co-chair of the Music and Religion Section of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). As a performer-scholar, she consults museums, conservatories, seminaries, and arts organizations on curriculum, live and virtual event programming, and content development. Dr Jones’ book Flaming? The Peculiar Theopolitics of Fire and Desire in Black Male Gospel Performance (Oxford University Press, 2020) breaks ground by analyzing the role of gospel music-making in constructing and renegotiating gender identity among black men. Her research interests extend to global pop music, musics of the African diaspora, music and food, the music industry and the marketplace, and anti-oppressive ways of listening to black women. Raised as a Pentecostal inflected, non-denomination Christian, Rev. Dr Jones is fourth-generation preacher on both sides of her family. Dr Jones is joined by her husband, a minister and activist Calvin Taylor Skinner. Dr Jones will take up her post in January 2022.
