RESEARCH
Welcome to the research area of my website. My principal interest is the relationship of music and sound to religious culture and confession in central Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To date my research has been concentrated in the religiously contested borderlands of the Holy Roman Empire, where musical culture both reflected and was inflected by the consolidation of Protestant churches and the response of Counter-Reformation Catholicism. This research engages with aspects of cultural history, sound studies, the history of the senses, and historical anthropology. A summary of my current projects appears below. See also my profile on Academia.edu.
Sound and Religious Identity in the Holy Roman Empire, ca. 1520-1650
Funded by an Insight Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, this multi-year project explores the ways in which sound and music related to confessional space and identity in the religiously-contested borderlands of the Holy Roman Empire. Addressing developments in Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Counter-Reformation Catholicism, this research will show how notions of confessional space were produced, maintained, and sometimes undermined through aural media. Special attention will be given to the soundscapes of ritual practices (including worship services, processions, and pilgrimages) and the relations and distinctions between aural and other sensory media.
Bells in Early Modern Religious Culture
This project aims to reconstruct the culture of bells in early modern Europe, considering their definition of time, space, and authority, as well as their role in the inculcation of social and religious discipline. A crucial element is the distinction between Catholic and Protestant views on bells: while the Reformation saw a concerted effort to desacralize bell sounds (notwithstanding the remarkable persistence of traditional beliefs surrounding bells and other sacramentals), the Catholic church maintained a more traditional notion of bells' thaumaturgical power to dispel demons and storms.
Sound and Religious Identity in the Holy Roman Empire, ca. 1520-1650
Funded by an Insight Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, this multi-year project explores the ways in which sound and music related to confessional space and identity in the religiously-contested borderlands of the Holy Roman Empire. Addressing developments in Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Counter-Reformation Catholicism, this research will show how notions of confessional space were produced, maintained, and sometimes undermined through aural media. Special attention will be given to the soundscapes of ritual practices (including worship services, processions, and pilgrimages) and the relations and distinctions between aural and other sensory media.
Bells in Early Modern Religious Culture
This project aims to reconstruct the culture of bells in early modern Europe, considering their definition of time, space, and authority, as well as their role in the inculcation of social and religious discipline. A crucial element is the distinction between Catholic and Protestant views on bells: while the Reformation saw a concerted effort to desacralize bell sounds (notwithstanding the remarkable persistence of traditional beliefs surrounding bells and other sacramentals), the Catholic church maintained a more traditional notion of bells' thaumaturgical power to dispel demons and storms.
