Mollie McFee
Associate Editor
The University of Chicago Press publishes innovative work in music and media studies, both for general readers and scholars.
Chicago’s music list includes award-winning titles in music history, music theory, popular music, sound studies, and ethnomusicology. Many of these titles have appeared in our series Big Issues in Music, Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology, New Material Histories in Music, and Opera Lab, which I am proud to sponsor. In popular music, I welcome books by writers in and outside the academy that capture diverse musical cultures, histories, and styles with the power to transform our understanding of ourselves and our wider world. Recent publications in our music list include Island Time: Speed and the Archipelago from St. Kitts and Nevis by Jessica Swanston Baker, The Sound of Thinking: A Listener’s Companion to Conceptual Music by Craig Dworkin, Music in the Flesh: An Early Modern Musical Physiology by Bettina Varwig, and Lyric Personhood: On the Aesthetics of Being Someone in the West by Dan Wang. We also publish books in conjunction with the Bard Music Festival.
Media studies books on film, digital culture, and media theory have a rich legacy at Chicago. I welcome submissions that explore media formats including film, radio, television, and digital arts, both commercial and vernacular. Chicago is proud to have published The Attractions of the Moving Image: Essays on History, Theory, and the Avant-Garde by Tom Gunning, The New Female Antihero: The Disruptive Women of Twenty-First-Century US Television by Sarah Hagelin and Gillian Silverman, and Distant Early Warning: Marshall McLuhan and the Transformation of the Avant-Garde by Alex Kittnick.
My colleagues acquire titles in adjacent areas that complement my own work. Joseph Calamia acquires our books in digital studies, including the Replay series. Elizabeth Branch Dyson is responsible for books in jazz studies. Alan Thomas oversees the publication of the critical editions of Verdi.
Before joining the Press’s staff in 2017, I obtained a PhD in comparative literature at the University of Chicago.
My colleague Kristin Rawlings supports my acquisitions with great knowledge and skill.
Prospective authors are encouraged to consult our submission guidelines. We also provide an overview about publishing with Chicago here.
