About the Author: Gayle Wald
Roy Cox Photography
I am an interdisciplinary scholar of American culture with specific interests in African American culture, including music, television, and literature. I am the author of four books: This Is Rhythm: Ella Jenkins, Children's Music, and the Long Civil Rights Movement (University of Chicago Press, 2025); Shout, Sister, Shout! The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe (2023, rpt.: Beacon; 2007); It's Been Beautiful": Soul! and Black Power TV (Duke University Press, 2015), and Crossing the Line: Racial Passing in U.S. Literature and Culture (Duke University Press, 2000). I have published articles and essays on a range of topics, from the music of Bob Dylan to the performance of “girlhood” in 1990s feminist punk.
In general my work is concerned with questions of cultural agency and cultural memory. These themes thread through everything from my biographies to my work on "girly" boy bands like the Backstreet Boys.
I am currently a co-editor of the NYU Press series Postmillennial Pop and edit the popular music section for Public Books. I have co-edited the Journal of Popular Music Studies and Bloomsbury’s 33-1/3 series of books on record albums. I am also a member of the Committee of Scholars of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum. My work has been supported by fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
At George Washington University, where I am a Professor of American Studies, I teach courses on cultural theory, American cultural history, and popular music.
ABOVE: Gayle Wald interviewing Ella Jenkins, with Bernadelle Richter, 2021. Photograph by Tim Ferrin.