Dr. Megan Rancier joined the BGSU College of Musical Arts faculty in 2011, after receiving her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2009. Her research focuses on Central Asia (specifically Kazakhstan) and the intersections between musical instruments, traditional and popular music, and national identity narratives. Since 2005 she has carried out several fieldwork projects in Almaty and Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan supported by the Title VIII Research Scholar Program, a Fulbright IIE fellowship, and a short-term travel grant from the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER). Her work has been published in the journals Review of Middle East Studies,Popular Music and Society, The Yearbook for Traditional Music, and Ethnomusicology. In 2018, her co-edited volume Turkic Soundscapes: From Shamanic Sounds to Hip-Hop was published by Routledge. At BGSU, Dr. Rancier teaches undergraduate courses on music cultures of the world, and a graduate course on the history and literature of ethnomusicology; she also directs the Music of the Balkans ensemble.
