BS, North Carolina State University
MM, Boston University
PhD, Boston University
Paula Bishop teaches writing-intensive seminars on folk music in the US, Native American music, music in television, and race, class, and gender in country music. She also teaches class piano, music theory, Western music history, and American popular music.
Dr. Bishop’s primary research focuses on American vernacular music of all types, but particularly popular music in the twentieth century. Her dissertation was on the Everly Brothers, an early rock ‘n’ roll duo. Her research has expanded to consider the relationship between popular music and film, television, and other media. She has published in the Journal of the Society of American Music and the Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd ed. She has presented at the annual conferences of the American Musicological Society, the Society for American Music, the Society for Ethnomusicology, Music and the Moving Image, and the International Country Music Conference.
In 2015, Bishop won a grant from the university to redesign a course under the supervision of BSU’s Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship. She was 2017 recipient of the Innovative Teaching with Technology Award, presented by BSU’s Teaching and Technology Center. She serves on the Writing Across the Curriculum Advisory Board and the Part-Time Faculty Advisory Board, and was chosen in 2017 to be a member of the Faculty Learning Community focusing on the first-year experience of students at BSU. She leads the weekly university-wide ukulele jam session which welcomes players of all abilities.
Dr. Bishop earned a BS in Computer Science from North Carolina State University, and an MM and PhD in musicology from Boston University. She is a certified yoga instructor and will soon be certified as a group exercise instructor. When not teaching or making music, she enjoys photography, hiking, running, and creating things with her hands.