Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kristine M. McCusker earned a Ph.D. in History, Folklore and Ethnomusicology from Indiana University in 2000. She has published Lonesome Cowgirls and Honky-Tonk Angels: The Women of Barn Dance Radio (Illinois, 2008) and co-edited, A Boy Named Sue: Gender and Country Music (Mississippi, 2004) and Country Boys and Redneck Women: New Essays in Gender and Country Music (Mississippi, 2016), which was given an honorable mention as Best Book of the Year by No Depression magazine. She also published multiple articles and book chapters that examine music as the outcome of historical change. Her new book is a National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine-funded book, Just Enough to Put Him Away Decent: Death Care, Life Extension and the Making of a Modern South, 1900-1955 (Illinois, 2023) She also recently published articles on musicians Bobbie Gentry and the Chicks. McCusker has contributed to multiple videos and documentaries, most recently "The Hayloft Gang" and "Facing the Laughter: Minnie Pearl," which were shown on PBS stations nationwide; on Lil Nas which appeared on NPT; and has worked with programs such as the Smithsonian's Museums on Main Streets program and the National Endowment of the Humanities/National Library Association grants program.

Selected Publications

Just Enough to Put Him Away Decent: Death Rituals, Life Extension and the Making of a Healthier South, 1900-1955  (Illinois, 2023).

"Bobbie Gentry's Odes to Mississippi: A Musical Biography of Place," Southern Cultures (2021 - open access).

"Dixie Chicked: Sony Versus the Chicks and the Regendering of Country Music in the Early 21st Century," in Bishop and Watson, eds., Whose Country Music? (Cambridge University Press, 2023).

"Gender and Country Music," Oxford Handbook of Country Music, Travis Stimeling, ed., (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 355-374.

With Diane Pecknold, eds., Country Boys and Redneck Women: New Essays in Gender and Country Music (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2016), Honorable Mention: Best Books of 2016, by No Depression magazine

"Patsy Cline and Narratives of Invisibility in the 1950s,"in Warren Hofstra, ed., Sweet Dreams: The Life and Times of Patsy Cline (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
2013).

"Funeral Music and the Transformation of Southern Culture, 1935-1945," American Music 30:4(Winter, 2012), 426-452.

With Laurie Witherow, "Bereavement and College Campuses: Establishing an Effective Ritual for the Classroom and Beyond," About Campus 17:1 (March-April, 2012),12-17.

Lonesome Cowgirls and Honky-Tonk Angels: The Women of Barn Dance Radio (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008).

Selected Awards

NEH CARES Award, 2020,  $43,000

Oral History Association, Co-Executive Director, 2018-2023.

National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine, $122,000.

John Hope Franklin Fellow, John Hope Franklin Research Center, Duke University, Summer, 2009, $600.

Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, Virginia Historical Society, Summer, 2009, $500.

Undergraduate Courses Taught

History 2020, Survey U.S. History II (Honors and General)

History 3020: American Music in the Modern Age (even years)

History 4045, Topics in American History: The Great Depression (Summer, online)

History 4070, Modern America Post-1945 (Hybrid - odd years)

History 4885, Senior Seminar

Graduate Courses Taught

History 5070, Modern America Post-1945

History 6104/7104, Seminar and Readings Sections: American Music in the Modern Age

History 6230/7230, Seminar: American Women's History

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