Devon Powers speaks to journalism and public relations students in the Union Theater.
Music critic and assistant professor Devon Powers spoke to journalism and public relations students in October about the early years of the growth of rock criticism.
Powers discussed her new book, Writing the Record: The Village Voice and the Birth of Rock Criticism that documents how music critics in the 1960s helped establish popular music as a genre worthy of intellectual attention. Over the course of her two-day visit, she met with students in several journalism classes to discuss her own experiences working in the music industry.
Powers is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Drexel University. Her research explores popular music and consumer culture, with specific interest in promotional culture, cultural intermediation, and cultural circulation. With Melissa Aronczyk, she is the editor of Blowing Up the Brand: Critical Perspectives on Promotional Culture (Peter Lang, 2010), and is the author of Writing the Record: The Village Voice and the Birth of Rock Criticism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2013). Her work has appeared in Popular Music and Society, Journalism History, International Journal of Communication, and Journal of Consumer Culture.