Dr. John Shepherd

John Charles Shepherd is a musicologist and sociologist whose work has been instrumental in effecting a fundamental paradigm shift in musicology. He has been a leading architect of a post-War critical musicology concerned with understanding music as a form of human expression that is socially constituted. In developing theories to understand the social character of all music, his work has contributed importantly to the inclusion of popular music as a legitimate object of study in musicology. His recent work argues that, as a social form, music displays characteristics that render it as fundamental as language to the constitution of human societies.