Mathew J. Bartkowiak
Campus
University of Wisconsin-Marshfield/Wood County
Home location
Marshfield (I actually grew up here)
Your primary area of
research and/or writing
My main focus of study has been on music and social change. I wrote my
dissertation on a band called the MC5 and their connection to a
revolutionary organization called the White Panther Party. I have
published on Pink Floyd, Love (the band), and other musical acts/ events
especially associated with the counterculture. I also focus on popular
culture studies (I went to Bowling Green for an M.A. in popular culture
studies), including a focus on film. I continue to study radicalism as
well. Recently, I additionally embarked on working with a former colleague
on a study of Japanese players in Major League Baseball that focuses on
media’s role in their reception here and abroad in the sport.
Guilty and not-so-guilty
reading pleasures
Honestly, since I finished grad school in 2007, I have had a difficult time
picking up a book without having a highlighter and pen in hand. So this
whole “reading for pleasure” thing is still boggling my mind. Here are
some works that are not by Baudrillard or De Certeau: I’m a huge Vonnegut
fan, I have enjoyed the Harry Potter series with great zeal, I have read way
too many books on the Kennedy assassination, Thich Nhat Hanh is a favorite,
and I think I Am America: And So Can
You! will be one that I will be sure to return to.
What do you most want your
colleagues to know about you as a person?
I attempted to make a living after high school as a poet in Ireland. I
saved some money working in high school and took off for Ireland. I
couldn’t afford to eat as much as I would have liked (or that my body
required) and headed home, immediately enrolling in college. From that
point I did my B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. all in a row.