The project examines the creative impact of depression on popular music in the context of rising clinical depression among young people, social inequalities, and cultural destigmatization. By bridging humanistic and epidemiological perspectives, it frames the "musical vernacular of depression" as both an aesthetic category and a medically unregulated site of public health discourse.
In collaboration with the Sorbonne University Pierre Louis Institute of Public Health and Epidemiology (iPLesp), Jessica Allison Holmes and the ESSMA research team will analyze depression-themed language in global chart-topping pop songs, musician interviews, and fan discussions from 2020 onwards, a period marked by the Covid-19 pandemic. Outputs will include an open-access data index and an interdisciplinary annotated bibliography addressing depression, adolescence, and social inequality.
The project explores:
The relationship between the musical vernacular of depression and clinical depression.
How popular music reflects lived experiences of depression and implicit bias in mental health frameworks.
Popular music’s role in shaping young people's mental health perceptions and communication.
Period abroad: April - June 2025
"The 4EU+ Visiting Professorship at the Sorbonne iPLesp will enable me to develop the interdisciplinary objectives of my current book project, The Musical Vernacular of Depression (under contract with the University of Michigan Press), through novel collaboration with ESSMA and Judith van der Waerden.
My residency will culminate in an international interdisciplinary research conference, Depression in Popular Music, taking place on 26–27 June 2025, at the Sorbonne. Open to scholars across the 4EU+ Alliance and beyond, the conference will explore the intersections of popular culture and mental health from diverse disciplinary and critical perspectives.
My collaboration with the Sorbonne iPLesp ESSMA Team will serve as the springboard for a proposed special issue of the Journal of Critical Public Health co-edited by myself and van der Waerden, and an ERC Synergy grant and/or ERC Consolidator grant application. You can read more about our conference on the (Sorbonne iPLesp website) and access the complete Call for Papers and submission guidelines on the conference website."
Submission deadline: 15 February 2025