John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study

Katherine Rye Jewell is the author of the first national history of college radio in the United States. Her work examines the intersection of cultural politics, popular music, the regulatory state, and universities and public media. Her award-winning book, Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio (UNC Press, 2023), unearths the origins of the beloved yet often understood medium of college radio. Known for launching bands such as Nirvana, R.E.M., and U2 to superstardom, it also functioned as a crossroads for shifting public expectations of colleges and universities in the 1980s and 1990s. This research builds on her experience as a political historian interested in how region and culture shape the implementation of policy, captured in her first book, Dollars for Dixie: Business and the Transformation of Conservatism in the Twentieth Century. She is currently working on a book about universities and their publics, including how they crafted educational radio to manage publicity, public service, and public access to these democratically informed institutions.