William T. Faber

William T. Faber is a Lecturer in the Department of Liberal Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). He is a Ph.D. Candidate in Music at the University of Chicago, completing a dissertation titled "Improvised Belongings: Music, Race, and Post-Imperial London". His research focuses on ethnomusicology, examining how performance, collaboration, and dissonance shape categories of race, nation, and musical style in jazz, electronic dance music, and reggae. He teaches interdisciplinary courses on experimental music, jazz and blues aesthetics, and global musical cultures.

As a musician, Faber performs with groups like Ben LaMar Gay's Tones for Tongues Quartet, Ernest Dawkins' Boglifier Ensemble, and is a founding member of El is a Sound of Joy, an interdisciplinary collective. He actively contributes to the Live the Spirit Residency, organizing the Englewood Jazz Festival and running a free after-school jazz program.

His courses at SAIC, such as "Experimentalism Unbound: Hearing the Noises beyond Sun Ra and John Cage" and "Jazz and Blues Aesthetics", critically engage with music's intersections with race, gender, and diaspora through lectures, listening exercises, and interdisciplinary research.