Benjamin Tausig

Benjamin Tausig is an Associate Professor in Critical Music Studies at Stony Brook University, where he has taught since 2014. His work intersects music studies, Southeast Asian studies, and anthropology, focusing on the political dimensions of sound in Thailand and beyond.

• Bangkok After Dark: Maurice Rocco and Cold War Global Nightlife (Forthcoming, 2024)
• Bangkok Is Ringing: Sound, Protest, and Constraint (Oxford University Press, 2019)

His research explores sound's role in political protest, Cold War-era transnational nightlife, urban auditory cultures, and gender alterity. He has published in journals such as Social Text, Music & Politics, and Modernism/Modernity, as well as popular venues like The New York Times and Afropop Worldwide. In 2023, he co-edited the Journal of Popular Music Studies.

Scientific Awards:

• 2020 British Forum for Ethnomusicology first-place book prize for Bangkok Is Ringing

Teaching courses like "Hearing Politics" and "Sound Studies of Asia," he bridges ethnographic methods with decolonial frameworks. His audio-based scholarship includes a partial audio-book version of Bangkok Is Ringing and collaborations with sound archives.