Erin T. Allen is a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology. Her research and teaching interests include musical (im)mobilities, music and social movements, affect and public space in contemporary American life, sound studies, and issues of ethics and aesthetics. Her dissertation project examines how performance and perception of brass street band music shapes and is shaped by a critical engagement with U.S. political culture and social life. Specifically, her research follows the work of a transnational community of artists, educators and activists involved in a family of festivals known as HONK! Festivals of Activist (or Community) Street Bands, which take place across the United States, Canada, Brazil, Costa Rica, Australia and the UK.

Erin Allen earned a bachelor’s degree in Music Performance and in Film from the University of Notre Dame, and holds a post-baccalaureate certificate in Anthropology from Northwestern University. Her work has been presented at the Society for Ethnomusicology, the American Studies Association, and the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. She is co-editor of the edited volume HONK!: A Street Band Renaissance of Music and Activism (2020 Routledge Press) and enjoys performing across the U.S. with several of the HONK! brass bands that she works with, as well as locally in Columbus, OH as a trumpet player in the non-profit NACHO Street Band.