Philip Gentry

Biography

Philip Gentry is a musicologist specializing in the history of popular and classical music in the United States during the 20th century. He is particularly interested in questions of history, identity and politics. His book What Will I Be: American Music and Cold War Identity (Oxford University Press, 2017) traced the changing relationship between music and identity during the 1950s, from doo-wop to John Cage. He has also published articles on Leonard Bernstein, music at Colonial Williamsburg and the musical Hamilton. He is currently writing a new book on anti-communist blacklisting in the music industry during the 1950s and working on a longer-term project on history and performance in Philadelphia.

Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Gentry earned a bachelor of arts in music from Wesleyan University, a master of arts in musicology from Brandeis University and a doctorate in musicology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

At the University of Delaware, he teaches in the music history core curriculum for undergraduate music majors, graduate seminars in research methods and various special topics, and general education courses on soul, hip-hop and LGBTQ music history.

He has served one term as an at-large member of the national council of the American Musicological Society and two terms as president of the society's Mid-Atlantic chapter. He is also active in the Society for American Music and the U.S. chapter of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music.