David Stowe

Biography

David W. Stowe teaches religious studies at Michigan State University, where he served from 2014-16 as chair of the English Department. His most recent book is Song of Exile: The Enduring Mystery of Psalm 137 (Oxford, 2016). His previous book was No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism (UNC Press 2011). How Sweet the Sound: Music in the Spiritual Lives of Americans (Harvard, 2004), won the Deems Taylor Award from ASCAP. Stowe’s first book, Swing Changes: Big Band Jazz in New Deal America (Harvard, 1994), was published in Japanese by Hosei University Press. He published his first novel, Learning from Loons, in 2020. While on leave from Michigan State University, Stowe taught at Doshisha University’s Graduate School of American Studies in Kyoto, Japan, where he also served as Associate Dean. During the 2012-13 academic year, Stowe held a research fellowship at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music. 

Education

Ph.D., Yale University, 1993

B.A., Haverford College, 1983

Principle Scholarly Interests

U.S. cultural history, music and religion, jazz history