Marcel Cobussen studied jazz piano at the Conservatory of Rotterdam and Art and Cultural Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands). He teaches philosophy and music at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague; jazz piano at the Music School Rotterdam; and aesthetics in the Department of Philosophy at Erasmus University. Cobussen is co-author of the book, Dionysos danst weer: Essays over hedendaagse muziekbeleving (1996) (Dionysos Dances Again: Essays on Contemporary Music). His Ph.D. dissertation was presented as an online website located at www.deconstructioninmusic.com. He is currently co-authoring a book with Geraldine Finn on music and spirituality.

Geraldine Finn is professor of Cultural Studies and Philosophy in the School for Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada). She specializes in twentieth-century European philosophy and its particular application in and relevance to concrete cultural and political “issues” of the day. Among her books are Why Althusser Killed his Wife: Essays on Discourse and Violence (1996) and Feminism in Canada: From Pressure to Politics (1982). She is currently working on two book length projects: one on music and spirituality, the other on ethics and the discourse of genes.

Elizabeth L. Keathley received her Ph.D. in Music from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where she also earned an Advanced Certificate in Women’s Studies. Her articles on Schoenberg, modernism, and gender have appeared in the U. S. and in Europe. Keathley is an Assistant Professor in Music History at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

William Hogeland is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. He is the author of the memoir Coons, Freaks, and Hillwilliams: 200 Years of Roots-Rock Revival, first published in NY Press. His articles on Dock Boggs and Steve Earle appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, and he has written about music and other subjects for Slate, Salon, and The Saint Ann’s Review. His article on the Delmore Brothers is forthcoming in The Oxford American. With Stephen Plumlee, Hogeland has conducted detailed primary research on the lives and music of the Louvin Brothers. He is working on a book of essays on country-music history and a book on terrorism and extremism in founding and federal period America.

Rachel Howard recently relocated to Seattle, where she is working on two collaborative digitization projects and trying to understand the local music scene. She lived in Washington, D.C. from 1995–2001, working with the collections of the American Folklife Center’s Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress as an intern and then a digital conversion specialist, and soaking up old-time music from living performers and archival recordings (including the Lomaxes’). She moonlighted for four of those years at a local independent book and record store, at which the re-issued Anthology of American Folk Music, Mermaid Avenue, Play, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? sold briskly.

Walter Nelson has been involved in historical music, and various forms of historical dressing and acting for some 25 years now. He is currently running the Lively Arts History Association, an organization that brings living history, historical music and vintage dance to museums, schools, and anyone who cares to join in. He is also a member of Flash Packet, a sea shanty group. In his day job, he is a Library web designer for the RAND Corporation, where he has been working for the last 17 years.

Anthony Seeger is Professor of Ethnomusicology at UCLA. He served as Curator of the Folkways Collection and Director of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings at the Smithsonian Institution from 1988 to 2000.  From 1982 to 1988, he served as Director of the Archives of Traditional Music and Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University.  He is also the author of Why Suya Sing: A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People (Cambridge University Press, 1987).

Jeff Todd Titon holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota, where he wrote his dissertation on blues music and culture. At Tufts University from 1971 to 1986, he held a joint appointment in the departments of English and music, and he co-founded the American Studies program there. In 1986 he took up his current position as Professor and Director of the doctoral program in ethnomusicology at Brown University. A Fellow of the American Folklore Society, he is the author or editor of seven books, including Early Downhome Blues, Powerhouse for God, Worlds of Music (now in its 4th edition), Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes, and American Musical Traditions; and from 1990 through 1995 he was the editor of Ethnomusicology, the Journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology. In addition, he is a documentary film maker, photographer, musician (guitar, banjo, fiddle), and he leads an old-time string band ensemble at Brown.

Alan Williams received his Bachelor of Music degree in Third Stream Studies from the New England Conservatory in 1986. He spent several years playing in a folk-rock group, Knots and Crosses, which signed a deal with Island Records after two successful self-released recordings. As a recording engineer and producer, his credits include Cry Cry Cry, Patty Larkin, Jennifer Kimball, Kris Delmhorst, and The Nudes. He served as musical director of the Dar Williams Band for two years, before leaving to enter graduate school. In 2001, he received a Masters in Ethnomusicology from Brown University, where he is currently working on his Ph.D. dissertation on the creative process and interpersonal dynamics of the recording environment. He has served on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell for the past eight years.

James Grier is professor of Music History at the University of Western Ontario and currently Edward T. Cone Member in Music Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He is the author of several studies on music and the liturgy in Aquitaine, 900–1200, and of The Critical Editing of Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Loren Kajikawa received his BA in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently a graduate student in the department of Musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His main interests include the relationship between racial politics and popular music, focusing mainly on jazz and hip-hop. He recently presented a paper entitled “Breathing Deep: Gesture, Space and Hip-Hop Interiority” at the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (US Chapter) conference.

Kristen Schilt is a graduate student in sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests include youth culture, sexuality, and gender in the workplace. She has an article on zines and cultural resistance forthcoming in Youth and Society, as well as an article on gay and lesbian media advocacy forthcoming in the Gay and Lesbian Journal of Social Services. She is currently working on her dissertation, which explores the experiences of transsexuals in the workplace.