Overview
Jill is a PhD candidate in musicology, with a focus on ethnomusicology. Her primary research is on music in Japan, particularly the relationship between music and society as demonstrated through J-pop, Buddhist festival music, and underground music. Jill’s study of Mandarin Chinese at the University of Chicago piqued an interest in East Asian history and, upon graduating with a BA in East Asian Languages and Civilizations in 2009, she worked as a middle school teacher in a Japanese fishing village for two years before coming to Cornell.
Other research interests include popular music of East Asia and the United States, and music’s relationship with globalization, capitalism, identity, modernity, cultural imperialism, and neoliberalism. Jill strives to break down generic boundaries between the “popular” and the “canonical” in her research as an avid listener of popular (and indie) music. A trumpet player since age eight, Jill is also interested in nineteenth and twentieth century Western orchestral music, as well as minimalism.
From 2014-2015, Jill will be undertaking fieldwork in Japan supported by the Fulbright Foundation and Music Television.