James Gabrillo

James Gabrillo is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), specializing in culture industries, pop music, sound art, and digital multimedia. He previously served as a Lecturer at The New School and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge (Peterhouse), following a career as a journalist and arts editor. At UT Austin, he leads the Sound Space Art Lab research initiative and is a faculty fellow at the Humanities Institute Seminar on Digital Futures and Social Justice. He is also an associate at Cambridge Digital Humanities. His research focuses on intersections of music, media, and cultural identity, with a particular emphasis on Philippine cultural studies and global popular music.

Educational Background:

• PhD from University of Cambridge (Peterhouse)
• Journalism and arts editing experience

Research Interests:

• Culture industries and digital multimedia
• Global pop music and performance cultures
• Ethnographic approaches to media and sound
• Philippine cultural and political history

Publications Highlight Trends: His work interrogates media's role in shaping cultural narratives, with a focus on the Philippines. Recent articles explore hip-hop archives, MTV's cultural impact, and community radio's role in tribal modernity. His book Pop Convergence: Musical Multimedia in Manila (Oxford UP, 2024) examines Manila's cultural networks through archival, analytical, and ethnographic methods.

Research Initiatives: He directs the Sound Space Art Lab, investigating sonic and spatial dimensions of cultural production. His collaborations with Cambridge Digital Humanities emphasize interdisciplinary digital humanities projects.