Jonathan Wynn works at the intersection of urban and cultural sociology. His two major publications are The Tour Guide: Walking and Talking New York (2011, University of Chicago Press, Fieldwork Encounters and Discoveries Series) and Music/City (2015, University of Chicago Press). His work has also been published in City & Community, Qualitative Sociology, Sociological Forum, Cultural Sociology, and Contexts Magazine, and an article in Ethnography called “Hobo to Doormen: The Characters of Qualitative Analysis, Past and Present.”
His forthcoming book, Music/City: Festivals and Culture in Great American Cities, is a comparative, multi-method analysis of three music festivals (the Country Music Association Festival in Nashville, the “Dunkin Donuts” Newport Folk Festival, and the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas). The book details the interrelationship between festivals and their cities, marking how they support and exploit each other through these internationally recognized events with rich description and interviews from a wide array of key urban and cultural placemakers. The book culminates with an argument for temporary events as critical to the culture of cities and their communities.
He also working on an Urban Culture primer (co-authored with Andrew Deener) that is under contract with the Oxford University Press.
Jonathan Wynn was recently the co-editor of the ASA Culture Section Newsletter (with Claudio Benzecry and Andrew Deener) between 2011 -2014 and was a regular contributor to Everyday Sociology in 2011-2014. On campus, he serves on the Common Read Book Committee.
Are there too many music festivals?
Apr 14, 2017 01:22 am UTC| Insights & Views Entertainment
Coachella unofficially kicks off the 2017 U.S. festival season on April 15, and while this years event in Indio, California will likely set attendance records, there are concerning trends in the live music...
Why cities should stop building museums and focus on festivals
May 13, 2016 11:19 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy
Last year the Institute of Museum and Library Services offered a catchy statistic: the United States has more museums than all the Starbucks and McDonalds combined. Its easy to understand why cities will leap at the...
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