Meet our PhD supervisors: Dr Sarah Hill
BA University of California, MA University of Chicago, MA Cardiff University, PhD Cardiff University (Thesis: ‘Blerwytirhwyng: Welsh Popular Music, Language and the Politics of Identity’.)
From 2002-2007 she was a Lecturer in Music at the University of Southampton. She is on the Editorial Boards of twentieth-century music and Popular Music and is a member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music and the Society for Minimalist Music.
San Francisco and the Long 60s
Sarah was awarded a AHRC Fellowship in 2011 to complete research on a cultural history of popular music in San Francisco, 1965-69. The project considers received historical accounts of the time, the music, visual and literary communications from the counterculture, and retrospective glances from members of the countercultural community over the past four decades.
Dr Sarah Hill from Cardiff School of Music on Vimeo.
Selected research/publications
- Peter Gabriel, From Genesis to Growing Up (2010) – Journalists and academics alike have long noted the importance of Peter Gabriel’s contribution to popular music. Co-edited with Michael Drewett and Kimi Kärki, this collection documents and critically explores the most central themes found in the work of Peter Gabriel, from his time as frontman for the progressive rock band Genesis through his solo career. The text divides these into three important conceptual areas: Identity and Representation; Politics and Power; and Production and Performance.
- ‘Blerwytirhwng?’ The Place of Welsh Popular Music (2007) – Following on from research for her PhD thesis, Sarah’s 2007 study explores the popular music which accompanied the cultural struggles of Welsh speakers in a predominantly Anglophone environment. It connects Wales to a larger Anglo-American popular culture, and considers the shift in power from the dominant to the minority. By surveying the development of Welsh-language popular music from 1945-2000, Sarah examines those moments of crisis in Welsh cultural life which signalled a burgeoning sense of national identity, challenged paradigms of linguistic belonging, and out of which emerged new expressions of Welshness.
Dr Hill would be happy to consider applications from students considering postgraduate research in the following areas:
Popular music historiography; politics and popular music; music in minority language cultures
Postgraduate funding:
Interested in pursuing postgraduate research at one of the largest and most diverse music schools in the UK? The School of Music is currently offering three competitive Studentships that cover tuition fees at the Home/EU rate. More information on our funding opportunities is available at:
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/music/degreeprogrammes/postgraduate/funding/index.html