About:

Joanna Bosse, Professor of Ethnomusicology and Dance Ethnography, is committed to the notion that sustained artistic practice is a necessary component of optimal wellness for individuals and communities. Her research interests include the relationship between music, health, and well-being; music and movement, and music cognition and emotion. She also researches performance-based teaching strategies and effective musicological pedagogies.

Her publications have focused on partnership dance traditions like salsa, tango, swing, and ballroom among amateur, hobbyist performers. Her book, Becoming Beautiful: Ballroom Dance in the American Heartland (University of Illinois Press 2015), presents an ethnographic case study of amateur ballroom dancers who experience personal transformation through artistic engagement, and her award-winning documentary film, Becoming Beautiful (2017) has screened on three continents. Her research on whiteness, race, and performance appears in The Journal of American Folklore, Dance Research Journal, Ethnomusicology Forum, and elsewhere.

She has presented at numerous SEM annual meetings over the years and was the first recipient of the SEM Nahumck Award for Dance Research. She is currently establishing new research areas at the intersection of ethnomusicology, psychology and neuroscience, and applied social work which explores the health and wellness benefits of artistic engagement, with current research projects focusing on seniors, dementia patients, and PTSD survivors as well as the impact of COVID on musicians. She also publishes in the area of ethnomusicological pedagogy. She holds the PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2004), where she was advised by Bruno Nettl.

Before joining the faculty at MSU, Bosse served on the faculties of Bowdoin College, Millikin University, and Illinois State University.