Last year, Bwog jammed with the JJ’s Place guys, shaked to Shakira with Dean Peña-Mora, and sang a Sesame song with Dean Denburg. We know how those crazy cats in Dodge Hall like to party, so we asked Music Department Chair and Ethnomusicology Professor, Aaron Fox, what’s in heavy rotation on his Ipod. Below are the musical selections he kindly shared with us.

• Mark Chesnutt, “A Better Class of Losers (Misery’s All the Same)”
• Justin Treviño and Wanda Jackson, “What Have We Done?”
• Lucinda Williams, “Sylvia” (“She Loves the Night”)
• Willie Nelson, “Darkness on the Face of the Earth”
• Marvin Gaye, “Mercy, Mercy, Me”
• Lyle Lovett, “LA County”
• Al Green, “Funny How Time Slips Away” (a Willie Nelson song, btw)
• Marty Stuart, “Badlands”
• Hal Ketchum, “Mama Knows the Highway”
• Stoney Edwards, “Blackbird” (the Chip Taylor song, not the Beatles’ one)

Professor Fox added the following in his email:

That’s my actual top 10 right now. The artists stay the same even if the songs change (plus throw in Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Chrissie Hynde, a few others). Pretty boring for an ethnomusicologist, huh? I mean, I spend more time perhaps listening to recordings of Native American music made in the 1930s and 40s, but that’s my work. This is what gets me to and from work. I have worn the exact same brand of boots and jeans for 20 years, and my personal musical tastes firmed up right around the same time.

Who knew the Chair of Columbia’s Music Department was a country fan? A little bird named Google informed us that Fox is actually a professional country guitarist. Way cool. Looks like Columbia has its very own Mr. Hyunh. (Bwog basically learned about country music from that excellent episode of Hey Arnold).

With so many politicians debating America’s foreign policy, others may be wondering what they can do for international relations. For its part, Columbia’s music department has come up with a cool event to interact more with friends across the Atlantic. It is partnering with the Conservatoire National de Musique de Paris and the two Berlin Academies of Music to put together a series of concerts that will be held in Berlin, Paris, and New York this fall.

In each city, students and professors will work with graduate student composers on their original works, which will premier at the concerts. Professors will also travel between the various institutions to give lectures in the run-up to the concerts.

Maybe it’s just Friday optimism, but Bwog finds the cross-continental collaboration inspiring. The New York concert is scheduled for Saturday, November 1st (Election Day weekend), at Merkin Hall on West 67th. Admission will be free.

The school year has ended and next fall many professors will be packing their bags and leaving behind their Metrocards for the greener pastures of other universities — Yale, in particular, seems to be popular among Columbia’s professorial population. (Another way professors are just like us!) Bwog’s rounded up some arrivals and departures of your beloved faculty, but let us know who we missed and we’ll update the post. 

David Kastan, the chair of the English Department and Edward Said Professor of English and Comparative Literature is heading to New Haven. 

Noam Elcott will be joining the Art History Department as an assistant professor. Bonus fun fact: Elcott was The Blue and White’s first moder editor (in 1998), following its 100 year hiatus. 

Also heading to Yale is the Music Department’s Brian Kane, who was at CU for a post-doctorate teaching fellowship.

Owen Gutfreund, responding to the University’s decision not to grant him tenure, announced in January that he was uncertain whether he would remain at Columbia (as an associate professor of urban studies and director of BC/CU Urban Studies Programs) after this spring. A quick glance at the course directory reveals that Gutfreund will not be teaching any Fall 2008 classes.

Lit Hum lecturer Jill Muller did not receive a contract renewal

Say goodbye to Annalies Wouters of Classics

Another loss for the Music Department as Ruth Rosenberg heads to the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Professor of Political Science Thomas Pogge is headed to Yale’s Philosophy Department (if you’re keeping score, that’s three for Yale).

Philosophy professor and YouTube user Christia Mercer is taking a sabbatical, as is Bwog’s inamorato, the Abelard to our Heloise, the Antony to our Cleopatra, English and Comp. Lit professor Bruce Robbins. 

Next school year marks the beginning of Barnard’s hunger-striking Professor of Political Science Dennis Dalton‘s retirement.

Philosophy professors/married persons Patricia and Philip Kitcher return from sabbatical, the later of whom will be teaching Michael Seidel’s Joyce course in the fall.