Melvin L. Butler is an associate professor in the Department of Musicology of the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. A scholar-performer with broad interests in music and religion of the African diaspora, he has conducted field research on popular music and religion in Haiti, Jamaica, and the United States. In these transnational contexts, he interrogates the cultural politics of popular culture and religious worship while attending to the role of musical style in constructing individual and collective identities. His research explores black music-making, improvisation, and transcendence, with an emphasis on discourses of cultural authenticity and power that inflect Spirit-filled Christian worship. Dr. Butler's first book, Island Gospel: Pentecostal Music and Identity in Jamaica and the United States (University of Illinois Press, 2019), examines the theological and experiential connections between Jamaican and African American Pentecostal music and gospel performance. His second book, tentatively titled Claiming Haiti: Music and the Cultural Politics of Transcendence in Haiti, is under contract with Oxford University Press. Location: Family Life Building Room: Caine Room FL 212

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