Laura Schnitker

Appointed Fall 2012

Laura Schnitker, Ph.D., is an ethnomusicologist and lecturer specializing in popular music, college and community radio, African-American music and the history of recorded sound. Her dissertation defined the concept of independence in American popular music as an ongoing tradition of alternative approaches to the creation, distribution and consumption of music that actively challenge cultural hegemonies. She has been teaching MUSC215: World Popular Musics and Identity at UMD since 2012. 

Dr. Schnitker has presented papers at a variety of conferences and institutions, including the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), the Association of Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), the International Association for the Society of Popular Music (IASPM), the Mid-Atlantic Chapter for the Society of Ethnomusicology (MACSEM), the Society of American Archivists (SAA), the Art of Record Production (ARP), the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA), the Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF), Tufts University, Catholic University, George Washington University and the Library of Congress. She has published articles in PopMatters, Antenna and The Current online, as well as in the New Grove Dictionary of American Music (2nd ed) and the Journal of Radio & Audio Media. She has also been a reviewer for The Journal of American Culture and Maryland Historical Magazine. 

Dr. Schnitker is also an audiovisual archivist and full-time curator in UMD Libraries’ Special Collections & University Archives. Here she leads the Mass Media & Culture unit managing, preserving and improving access to archival collections, and supervising digital history projects related to broadcast history. She won a scholarship to attend the Modern Archives Institute at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., in 2012, and in 2014 earned her certification from the Academy of Certified Archivists. She currently co-chairs the College, Community and Educational Radio Caucus for the Radio Preservation Task Force, and serves as an executive committee member for “Legends: The Evolution and Legacy of Black Radio” project. She has also curated exhibits for both Hornbake Library and the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library featuring campus radio station WMUC, cult film Heavy Metal Parking Lot, and the 50th anniversary of Maryland Public Television.

Dr. Schnitker has been an on-air DJ since 2002, first at WMFO-FM in Medford, MA, then at WMUC-FM in College Park where she currently hosts The Bohemian Challenge every Thursday morning at 10 a.m.