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Ryan Lambe, PhD Candidate in Cross-Cultural Musicology, Focuses His Work on Queer Open Mics

Ryan Lambe is a sixth-year PhD candidate and teaching fellow at UC Santa Cruz studying cross-cultural musicology. His dissertation is an ethnographic study of performance and emotional labor in US queer open mics examined through queer and critical race lenses. 

He argues that queer open mics use performance to negotiate the ambivalences of neoliberalism and identity politics and model a participatory form of cultural democracy. 

Ryan earned his Bachelor of Music Education at Idaho State University before moving to New Jersey to teach music to underserved populations in public schools. In his free time, he enjoys going on walks, cartoons, cooperative games, and collaging. 

Ryan’s research interests include amateur and community musics, critical race studies, gender and sexuality, cultural studies, critical pedagogies, and popular music.