Department of Music

Professor Emeritus Jeff Titon Given Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award by American Folklore Society; Book Published by Indiana University Press

Brown University Professor Emeritus in Music Jeff Todd Titon was honored this month by the American Folklore Society with their "Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award," bestowed on a living senior scholar for outstanding scholarly achievement over the course of a career. According to the encomium that the AFS Board wrote, the Award is for Professor Titon's “long, distinguished and ground-breaking career as a fieldworker, educator, author, editor, theorist and mentor.” The award recognizes Professor Titon for his career in ethnomusicology as well as folklore.

In other news, Professor Titon's book Toward a Sound Ecology: New and Selected Essays was published in August 2020 by Indiana University Press. According to the description of the book, 

How does sound ecology—an acoustic connective tissue among communities—also become a basis for a healthy economy and a just community?

Jeff Todd Titon's lived experiences shed light on the power of song, the ecology of musical cultures, and even cultural sustainability and resilience. In Toward a Sound Ecology, Titon's collected essays address his growing concerns with people making music, holistic ecological approaches to music, and sacred transformations of sound. Titon also demonstrates how to conduct socially responsible fieldwork and compose engaging and accessible ethnography that speaks to a diverse readership. Toward a Sound Ecology is an anthology of Titon's key writings, which are situated chronologically within three particular areas of interest: fieldwork, cultural and musical sustainability, and sound ecology. According to Titon—a foundational figure in folklore and ethnomusicology—a re-orientation away from a world of texts and objects and toward a world of sound connections will reveal the basis of a universal kinship.

Congratulations, Professor Titon, on these achievements!