About
I am a music theorist and ethnomusicologist whose publications focus on two intersecting areas: 1) music and politics, particularly as it relates to social movements and war trauma; and 2) popular music in global context, exploring social and aesthetic processes of globalization and identity formation. My publications address intertextuality, musical metaphor, cyberspace, urban soundscapes, popular music analysis, the interaction of linguistics and music, and the music industry, particularly as it relates to hip hop, Japanese music, and Cuban music. Combining ethnography with music theory, I develop frameworks drawn from linguistics, political science, urban studies, literary studies, and financial analysis. I am the editor of a book series on Japanese popular music and co-editor of the
Oxford Handbook of Protest Music.
Recent research topics include:
- Urban space and its interaction with street performance and protests
- Types of intertextuality in protest music and their relation to sociopolitical circumstances
- The constraints placed on Japanese musicians and the roles they take in the antinuclear movement
- Interaction of phonetics and meter with meaning in African American hip hop and Japanese rock
- Japanese identity as expressed by popular musicians outside Japan
- Musical commemoration of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Education
CUNY Graduate Center, Ph.D., Ethnomusicology and Music Theory
Stanford University, MBA, Graduate School of Business.
Yale University, BA, Mathematics and Music (two majors) Publications
A more complete list is available at
Google Scholar
Academia.edu
Monograph
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Protest Music after Fukushima. Oxford University Press .
Edited books
Series editor, 33-1/3 Japan book series.
2017
Supercell ft. Hatsune Miku by Keisuke Yamada
2017
Yoko Kanno’s Cowboy Bebop by Rose Bridges
2018
Perfume’s GAME by Patrick St. Michel
2019
AKB48, by Patrick Galbraith and Jason Karlin
2019
Cornelius’s Fantasma by Martin Roberts
2020
Joe Hisaishi’s Music for My Neighbor Totoro, by Kunio Hara
Peer-reviewed journal articles (selected; see full list on Google Scholar or Academia.edu
2019 “We Gon’ Be Alright? The Ambiguities of Kendrick Lamar’s Protest Anthem.” In “Forum on Kendrick Lamar’s
To Pimp a Butterfly.”
Music Theory Online 25/1 (May).
http://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.19.25.1/mto.19.25.1.manabe.html.
2019 “Chants of the Resistance: Flow, Memory, and Inclusivity.” In “Forum on Sound in the Women’s March and Beyond.”
Music and Politics 13/1 (Winter).
http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/mp.9460447.0013.105.
2013 “Music in Japanese Antinuclear Demonstrations: The Evolution of a Contentious Performance Model.”
The Asia-Pacific Journal, 11/42 (October 21).
https://apjjf.org/2013/11/42/Noriko-Manabe/4015/article.html
2013 “Representing Japan: ‘National’ Style Among Hip-Hop DJs.”
Popular Music 32/1
: 35–50.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23359880.
2006 “Globalization and Japanese Creativity: Adaptation of Japanese Language to Rap.”
Ethnomusicology 50/1 (Winter): 1–36.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20174422.
Projects
MUSIC AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Monograph:
Revolution Remixed:
Intertextuality in Protest Music. Forthcoming.
Edited volume:
Oxford Handbook of Protest Music, co-edited with Eric Drott. Forthcoming.
Edited volume:
Nuclear Music: Sonic Responses to War, Disaster, and Power, co-edited with Jessica Schwartz. Forthcoming.
Blog on protest sounds
POPULAR MUSIC IN JAPAN
Japanese club musics
Japanese popular musicians in Europe and Brazil
Japanese children’s songs
33-1/3 Japan, series editor, book series
POPULAR MUSIC ANALYSIS
Rock and hip hop in Japanese language
Comparative studies of hip hop in multiple languages
Analysis of hip hop
Upcoming Talks and Conferences
For 2024:
University of Buffalo
For 2023:
Universidad de Playa Ancha, Valparaiso, Chile
Society for Music Theory, Peer Learning Program
Queens University, Belfast
Past talks, 2023:
IASPM International
University of North Texas, Music Department Colloquium
Association for Asian Studies conference
Portland State University, Center for Japanese Studies
Wesleyan University, East Asian Studies
University of Colorado-Boulder, Anthropology
Music Culture in the Age of Streaming, University of Leeds
Florida State University, Keynote, Music Theory Forum.
Memberships
Society for Ethnomusicology (past Treasurer, Board, Council)
Society for Music Theory (past chair, Publication Awards Committee)
Association for Asian Studies (Finance Committee)
Japan Association for the Study of Popular Music
Society for Japanese Studies (Board of Trustees)
