This article analyzes the nexus between collective violence, temple violation, and military glory in 1 and 2 Maccabees by comparing two festivals established in the context of revolt and guerilla warfare; namely, Hanukkah and Nicanor’s Day. It argues that the accounts of the origins of these two festivals in 1 and 2 Maccabees reinforce the close c…[Read more]

In the current social and political turmoil, few issues are more divisive and cause more controversy than issues related to the rights of sexual minorities and gender dissidents. The polarizing impact of these issues is really astounding given the size of these two groups. Explanations for this divisiveness of LGBTQ rights focus on either the…[Read more]

This dissertation develops a methodology for understanding tonality and tonal structures in Renaissance polyphony by exploring the ways that the modern-day analyst and listener experience tonal phenomena in this music through a historically-informed lens. Regarded as one of the most important composers of the late-sixteenth century, Tomás Luis de…[Read more]

In this paper, presented at the 2022 H-Net Teaching Conference, I describe how I teach undergraduate students about disability in music through what I call disclosure-oriented pedagogy. This practice involves demonstrating cross-historical comparisons between my lived experiences of disability and the representations of disability in 19th-century…[Read more]