Chris Greencorn is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Queen’s University. His research interests lie at the juncture of social & cultural history, ethnomusicology, folklore studies, and archival studies
Chris’s SSHRC-supported dissertation, supervised by Dr. Lisa Pasolli, examines the work of women folk culture collectors in 20th-century Canada, and in particular their constructions of "folk" and "traditional" music among settler, immigrant, and Indigenous peoples in the period leading up to Canada’s official multiculturalism policy. His MA research at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music focused on collector Helen Creighton's work in African Nova Scotian communities.
His professional background is in the music industry. Chris was Artistic Director of the Stan Rogers Folk Festival in Canso, Nova Scotia (2018-20), sits on the Board of Directors of Folk Music Ontario, and juries industry awards in several regions.
Chris holds a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship–Doctoral. He was the D. W. Stewart Graduate Fellow and Roger Graham Fellow in Modern Canadian History in 2023-24, and the Arthur & Evelyn Lower Graduate Fellow in Canadian History as well as a Duncan & Urlla Carmichael Fellow in 2022-23.
Scholarly Reviews
“Listening to the Fur Trade: Soundways and Music in the British North American Fur Trade, 1760–1840. By Daniel Robert Laxer. (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022. Pp. 320, 13 photos, 3 maps, 7 tables. $ 34.95 Paperback.)” Ethnohistory 71, no. 3 (2024): 409–11. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-11162454.
“Sankofa Songs, A Legacy of Roots and Rhythm: African Nova Scotian Songs from the Collection of Dr. Helen Creighton” [sound recording review], MUSICultures 48 (2021): 400–3. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/MC/article/view/32790/1882528002.
Blog Posts
Responses to Buchanan Postdoctoral Fellow Eric Fillion's Curating for Change: The Work Music Festivals Do in the World conference: Part 1 (October 3, 2022) and Part 2 (November 28, 2022).
As Editor
Founding editor, The Killick, undergraduate history student journal, St. Francis Xavier University.
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Canada Graduate Scholarship–Doctoral
- Canadian Society for Traditional Music Student Paper Prize
- For “‘I doubt if they were unusual’: Race and Place in Helen Creighton's 1967 African Nova Scotian Recording Project,” presented at Congrès Dialogues Conference 100e FaMUL, Université Laval, May 2023
- SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship–Master's
