Dr Adam Harper

BA Music (Magdalen College, University of Oxford, 2008); MA Historial Musicology (Goldsmith’s College, University of London, 2009); DPhil Musicology (University of Oxford, 2014)
 

I have been tutoring at various Oxford colleges since 2011, and became a lecturer here since 2021, having also lectured at City, University of London, Goldsmiths, University of London, the University of Birmingham and Oxford Brookes University.

At Oxford I have been a lecturer for Foundations in the Study of Music, Musical Thought and Scholarship, Minimalism and After, and the Social and Cultural Study of Music. I have been a personal tutor for courses including World Jazz, Women and Popular Music, History of Electronic Music, Global Hip Hop, and Music, Mind and Behaviour.

My interests chiefly lie in music history since 1945, particularly electronic music, popular music and counterculture, and the aesthetics and politics of music technology. 

Harper, Adam (2020). 'Out of Touch? The Challenge of Reconnecting Bodies and Instruments “of the Future.”' Contemporary Music Review 39, no. 252-272.
Harper, Adam (2019). 'Vaporwave is Dead, Long Live Vaporwave' in Nicholas Cook, Monique Ingalls, David Trippett, Peter Webb (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Music in Digital Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 119-123.
Harper, Adam (2018). 'To Have and to Hold: Touch and the Vinyl Resurgence.' Tempo 73, no. 287, pp. 52–61.
Harper, Adam (2017). 'How Internet Music is Frying Your Brain*', Popular Music 36, no. 1, pp. 86-97 (the title is ironic!).
Harper, Adam (2017). 'Images of Thought, Images of Music' in Bernd Herzogenrath (ed.), Sonic Thinking: A Media Philosophical Approach (New York: Bloomsbury Academic).
Harper, Adam (2016). '"Backwoods": Rural Distance and Authenticity in Twentieth-Century American Independent Folk and Rock Discourse.' Samples 14.
Harper, Adam (2014). 'Composition, Change and Musical Objects in Infinite Music' in Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik, Band 22. Mainz: Schott Music.

When not teaching or researching, I’m probably cooking dishes from around the world, trying to complete a video game, or walking in the nearby Berkshire Downs with a good audiobook or album.