Degrees:

Ph.D., Harvard University, 2015
A.M., Harvard University
B.Mus., Dalhousie University
B.A. (Hon), Dalhousie University

Profile:

Professor James Blasina completed the PhD (2015) in Historical Musicology at Harvard University, under Professors Thomas F. Kelly, Suzannah Clark, and Beverly Kienzle. His current research interests include liturgical chant and its sociocultural contexts, liturgy and sanctuary law, gender studies, global boy bands, and popular music in the former Yugoslavia. Taught courses include “Hildegard of Bingen in Context and Revival,” “Divas,” “Music and Masculinities,” “Sound, Sinners, and Saints in Medieval England,” and “1000 Years of Musical Firsts.” He also directs Critical Mass, Swarthmore’s medieval-renaissance vocal ensemble, and serves as co-ordinator of the Program in Medieval Studies.

James’s research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Yale Institute for Sacred Music, the American Philosophical Society, and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation (Venetian Research Program). He has published on aspects of musical attribution in the Middle Ages, tranmissions of music for St Katherine of Alexandria, and music and national identity in the European middle ages. He is an active peer reviewer and together with Nathan R. Anderson (’17) created an Oxford Bibliography for “Music and Liturgy for the Cults of Saints”. His current book project, St Katherine of Alexandria in Music and Liturgy: The Making of a Cult in Medieval Europe, is under contract with Liverpool University Press.

Prior to Swarthmore College, James taught as a lecturer at the College of the Holy Cross and as graduate teaching fellow at Harvard University. In addition to his scholarly interests, he is a pianist, choral singer and director, and an avid hiker and cook.