Katelyn Hearfield
Katelyn Hearfield is a Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in Theater, Dance & Media. Her research asks how the experience of trauma impacts the production and reception of contemporary popular music in an expanding media landscape encumbered by the intersections of gender, sexuality, affect, and labor. She explores the tension between, on the one hand, contemporary society’s pervasive belief in music’s intrinsic power to promote healing and, on the other, the media’s exploitation of popular performers, especially women and queer musicians. Her work contends that such manipulation of artists and audiences is cause for concern, while also arguing that communities can respond productively to traumatic events by engaging with music. Ultimately, her research aims to disentangle these issues by interpreting popular music through the lens of affective (or emotional) labor. Her article "Kesha's Comeback and the Stakes of Live Performance: Connecting Through Trauma at the 2018 Grammy Awards,” published in the Journal of Musicological Research special issue on #MeToo, affirms the powerful effects of live performance and the vulnerability experienced between artist and audience, comparing the impact of Kesha’s 2018 Grammys performance with viral movements such as #FreeKesha and #MeToo. It explores how Kesha’s reputation and musical output has shifted following her heavily publicized experiences of abuse in the music industry.
Her current book project, tentatively titled Don’t Look Back In Anger: Communal Singing After the Manchester Arena Bombing, argues that the unique music culture of the city of Manchester, UK, was fundamental to how locals responded to the 2017 terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena. From government initiatives to vernacular discourse, Mancunians leveraged their shared music culture to transform isolated healing into communal experience through communal singing, shared affect, and music iconography in memorialization activities. The book will cover events and materials including spontaneous memorial singalongs, large-scale charity events, music-related holdings at the Manchester Together Archive, and rehearsals and performances of local performing ensembles.
Hearfield holds a PhD in Music from the University of Pennsylvania with a graduate certificate in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. In her teaching, she uses familiar popular culture materials in order to challenge students to engage with challenging theoretical concepts. She is a proud first-generation college student and is invested in supporting students from all backgrounds and experiences.