© photo by Jeff Day

Clifton Boyd

Doctoral Student Fellow

Visiting Assistant Professor
Keep It Barbershop: Stylistic Preservation and Whiteness in the Barbershop Harmony Society

Clifton Boyd (he/him) is a music theorist and scholar-activist whose research explores themes of (racial) identity, politics, and social justice in American popular music. His book project, Keep It Barbershop: Stylistic Preservation and Whiteness in the Barbershop Harmony Society, demonstrates how nostalgia-fueled efforts toward musical and cultural preservation can perpetuate racial injustice. Combining critical race studies and music theory, this work furnishes new understandings of whiteness, barbershop as a racialized musical practice, and vernacular music theory. His research on music and politics also extends beyond the U.S. context: he is in the preliminary stages of a research project on how African immigrants in Italy negotiate questions of race, nationality, and citizenship through contemporary popular music. He specializes in several subfields of music-analytical research, including nineteenth-century chamber music, minimalist music, and musical meter. Read more