Liza Sapir Flood

Liza Sapir Flood is an Assistant Professor in the Engagements Program at the University of Virginia, where she integrates ethnomusicological perspectives into interdisciplinary teaching and learning. Her work centers on music as a dynamic social practice deeply embedded in everyday life.

Her research focuses on American music and culture, with regional expertise in the southern United States, particularly rural areas and spaces of rural-urban interface. She investigates how music fosters interaction among strangers, enables collaboration across differences, and serves as a medium for self-expression, resistance, and community building. Ethnomusicology, for her, is not just about analyzing sound but understanding music as an active, participatory process that shapes identity, memory, belonging, and ethics.

Her teaching philosophy is deeply informed by experiential learning, having begun her career teaching incarcerated teenagers in wilderness settings through poetry and collaborative exploration. This background aligns with the mission of the Engagements Program, which transcends traditional classroom boundaries, disciplines, and methodologies to foster active, collaborative, and culturally engaged learning.

She emphasizes that culture is not passively inherited but actively made, and she empowers students to recognize their roles as participants in shaping cultural narratives. Through this lens, she encourages critical thinking, creative methodology, and deep engagement with the immediate world as a foundation for limitless intellectual exploration.