#  Jordan R. Brown (she/her) 

Chair

 

 

 



   ![2025 Headshot of Jordan Brown](/sites/g/files/omnuum5666/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/2025-07/DSC05313_Original.jpg?itok=4x0_Bml3) 

 



 

 email <jbrown@g.harvard.edu> 

 laptop\_windows [jordanrbrown.com](https://www.jordanrbrown.com/) 

 

 



 

Jordan R. Brown, M.M., M.A. (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology and Presidential Scholar at Harvard University with a secondary field in African and African American Studies. She is currently chair of Harvard University’s Graduate Music Forum, co-chair of Project Spectrum, and a UNESCO Youth Ambassador for Peace and Intercultural Dialogue. Brown’s dissertation, tentatively titled “The Black Alternative: A Cultural and Musical Phenomenon” uses Black politics, Black feminist theory, and “quare” theory to investigate the word “alternative” as it is used on genres commercially coded as “Black,” specifically alternative R&amp;B and alternative hip-hop. Her work will be supported by the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute, where she will serve as the Dorothy Porter Fellow during the 2025–2026 academic year. She identifies as a performer-scholar and intends to continue bridging the two practices in her future work.