Mark Rodgers (he/him)

I am an enthusiastic and versatile teacher with special passions for experiential and place-based learning and cultivating inclusive classroom environments. I teach a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in the School of Music, and I also regularly offer versions of my course "Music, Birdsong, and the Limits of the Human" in the Interdisciplinary Honors and College Edge programs. 

The core of my work at the School of Music involves teaching introductory courses in music appreciation and music history. I love introducing students to "classical music," and, beginning with the forthcoming eleventh edition, I am working with Gary Tomlinson on revising Listen, a leading music appreciation textbook originally written by Joseph Kerman and now published by W.W. Norton.  

In the rest of my teaching and research I focus on three distinct areas, which sometimes overlap with one another through guiding interests in bioethics and cultural theory: labor studies, the "gig economy," and working musicians in the Pacific Northwest; animal musicality (especially birdsong), posthumanism, and the environment; and the history of music before 1750. 

Labor is the most active area of my research. I am currently working on a book about the political economy of musical work in the Pacific Northwest since the 1970s, which grows out of extensive archival and oral-historical work I have conducted locally since 2020. I have presented some of the early fruits of this project at regional and national conferences. And in May 2026, I hosted a Music & Labor Symposium at the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories. 

I welcome inquiries from prospective students and members of the public. I enjoy baking, birding, musicking, volunteering in my communities, and making the most of the many opportunities for outdoor activities afforded by the Pacific Northwest.