I am associate professor in musicology specialized in popular music.
Teaching
My teaching spans various courses in musicology, in the arts and culture programme, music history courses in the teacher education programme for upper secondary school as well as in the music and sound design programme.
Research
My research interests entail jazz and popular music from Sweden and the Nordic countries and connect to ideas of music and the framework of nation-states with related issues like ethnicity, race and gender. They include transnational contacts in local and transnational context with links to the Nordic countries. I am also interested in music and media and the ways in which people use these to construct various meanings of music. Here, I focus specifically on sound reproduction media and their packaging, such as 78-rpm and vinyl records and the ways music is connected to (moving) images.
I also worked with electronic music in the interdisciplinary project “Historically informed design of sound synthesis: A multidisciplinary, structured approach to the digitization and exploration of electronic music heritage”, which was funded by the Swedish research council and in which I collaborated with researchers at KTH and KMH.
Currently I'm also working with connections between military music and popular music in and around Växjö in the postwar era.
Commissions
Since 2020, I represent Sweden in the board of the Nordic branch of the IASPM (International Association for the Study of Popular Music). I am also a member of the board of the Swedish Society for Music Research (SSM).
Publications
Selected publications
- Van Kan, M. (2024). Public Broadcasting Companies and Jazz Outside of the United States. The Routledge Companion to Diasporic Jazz Studies. New York, Routledge.
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Van Kan, M. (2023). Lyssnarspår på skivomslag : Jazzkonvolut som kladdpapper, katalogisering och kunskapande. RIG : Kulturhistorisk tidskrift. (3). 129-141.
Status: Published -
Van Kan, M. (2023). Electronic music as music heritage : When the future becomes a valuable past. Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning. 105 (1). 41-64.
Status: Published -
Van Kan, M. (2022). Modernism and Record Covers : Raising the Status of Jazz in Sweden. Cultural Sociology. 16 (2). 165-189.
Status: Published -
Van Kan, M. (2022). Presenting the Studio on Record Covers : Changing the Understanding of Swedish Jazz Records. Popular music and society. 45 (4). 446-466.
Status: Published - Van Kan, M. (2022). Swedish Jazz in the United States : Swede and Cool. New York, Routledge.
- Dunkel, M., Van Kan, M. (2019). Transnational Perspectives on Jazz in Germany. Jazzforschung heute : Themen, Methoden, Perspektiven. Berlin, Edition EMVAS. 19-36.
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Van Kan, M. (2016). Cooling down jazz : Making authentic Swedish jazz possible. Jazz Research Journal. 10 (1-2). 137-156.
Status: Published
Article in journal (Refereed)
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Van Kan, M. (2023). Lyssnarspår på skivomslag : Jazzkonvolut som kladdpapper, katalogisering och kunskapande. RIG : Kulturhistorisk tidskrift. (3). 129-141.
Status: Published -
Van Kan, M. (2023). Electronic music as music heritage : When the future becomes a valuable past. Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning. 105 (1). 41-64.
Status: Published -
Van Kan, M. (2022). Modernism and Record Covers : Raising the Status of Jazz in Sweden. Cultural Sociology. 16 (2). 165-189.
Status: Published -
Van Kan, M. (2022). Presenting the Studio on Record Covers : Changing the Understanding of Swedish Jazz Records. Popular music and society. 45 (4). 446-466.
Status: Published -
Van Kan, M. (2016). Cooling down jazz : Making authentic Swedish jazz possible. Jazz Research Journal. 10 (1-2). 137-156.
Status: Published
Article, book review (Other academic)
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Van Kan, M. (2022). [Review of] Vinyl Freak: Love Letters to a Dying Medium by John Corbett. Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation. School of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph. 15 (1). 1-4.
Status: Published
Book (Refereed)
- Van Kan, M. (2022). Swedish Jazz in the United States : Swede and Cool. New York, Routledge.
Doctoral thesis, monograph (Other academic)
- Van Kan, M. (2016). Swingin' Swedes : The Transnational Exchange of Swedish Jazz in the US. Doctoral Thesis. Göteborg, University of Gothenburg. 315.
Chapter in book (Refereed)
- Van Kan, M. (2024). Public Broadcasting Companies and Jazz Outside of the United States. The Routledge Companion to Diasporic Jazz Studies. New York, Routledge.
- Dunkel, M., Van Kan, M. (2019). Transnational Perspectives on Jazz in Germany. Jazzforschung heute : Themen, Methoden, Perspektiven. Berlin, Edition EMVAS. 19-36.
Chapter in book (Other academic)
- Van Kan, M. (2021). Bengt Hallberg i utländsk jazzpress på 1950-talet. Bengt Hallberg : jazzpianist, kompositör, arrangör, pedagog. Vaxholm, Vax records. 198-211.
Chapter in book (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.))
- Van Kan, M. (2019). Monica Zetterlund : 1937-2005. Märkvärdiga svenska kvinnor : 200 kvinnor som förändrat våra liv. Stockholm, Bonnier. 76-81.
Conference paper (Refereed)
- Van Kan, M. (2014). The Racial Imagination and Authenticity in Swedish Jazz : The Swedish Reception of Miles Davis’ Versions of Dear Old Stockholm. Jazz, Gender, Authenticity : Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Jazz Research Conference, Stockholm August 30–31 2012. 79-87.