James Buhler received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1996. Prior to joining the faculty at UT–Austin, he taught at Carleton College and the University of Wisconsin—Madison. His research interests include the history and theory of the sound track, auditory culture, and critical theory. He has published extensively in edited anthologies as well as in Nineteenth-Century Music, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Cambridge Opera Journal and Modernism/Modernity among others. Along with David Neumeyer and Caryl Flinn, Professor Buhler edited a collection of essays on film music for Wesleyan University Press (2000). He is currently working with David Neumeyer and Rob Deemer on a textbook on music and sound in film for Oxford University Press; this book is scheduled for release in 2008. His next project is a book on the auditory culture of early American cinema, 1895-1933.
Selected Publications:
“‘Everybody Sing’: Family and Social Harmony in the Hollywood Musical.” In A Family Affair. Edited by Murray Pomerance. Wallflower Press, in press.
“Silent Movies and the Transition to Sound” In The Cambridge Companion to Film Music, edited by Peter Franklin and Robynn Stilwell. Cambridge University Press. Co-authored with David Neumeyer, in press.
“Music in the Evolving Soundtrack.” In Companion to Sound in Film and the Visual Media, edited by Jochen Eisentraut and Graeme Harper. Continuum Books. Co-authored with David Neumeyer, in press.
“Enchantments of The Lord of the Rings: Soundtrack, Myth, Language, and Modernity.” In From Hobbits to Hollywood: Essays on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, edited by Murray Pomerance and Ernest Mathijs, 231-48. Editions Rodopi, 2006.
“Music—Sound—Narrative: Analyzing Casablanca.” In Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology 5, edited by Maciej Jablonski and Michael Klein, 277-91. Poznan, Poland: Rhytmos, 2005. Co-authored with David Neumeyer.
“Frankfurt School Blues: Rethinking Adorno’s Critique of Jazz.” In Apparitions: New Perspectives on Adorno and Twentieth Century Music, edited by Berthold Hoeckner, 103-30. Routledge, 2006.
“Theme, Thematic Process, and Variant-Form in the Andante moderato of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony.” In Perspectives on Gustav Mahler, edited by Jeremy Barham, 255-88. Ashgate Press, 2005.
“Disenchanting Music.” Review article of Absolute Music and the Construction of Meaning, by Daniel K.L. Chua. 19th-Century Music 26, no. 2 (2002): 183-190.
“Analytical and Interpretive Approaches to Film Music (I): Analyzing the Music.” In Film Music: An Anthology of Critical Essays, edited by K.J. Donnelly, 16-38. Edinburgh University Press, 2001. Co-authored with David Neumeyer.
“Analytical and Interpretive Approaches to Film Music (II): Interpreting Interactions of Music and Film.” In Film Music: An Anthology of Critical Essays, edited by K.J. Donnelly, 39-61. Edinburgh University Press, 2001.
“Star Wars, Music and Myth.” In Music and Cinema, edited by James Buhler, Caryl Flinn, and David Neumeyer, 33-57. Wesleyan University Press, 2000.
“Breakthrough as Critique of Form: The Finale of Mahler’s First Symphony.” 19th-Century Music 20, no. 2 (1996): 125-43.
“Film Music/Film Studies,” Review article of Strains of Utopia, by Caryl Flinn; and Settling the Score, by Kathryn Kalinak. Journal of the American Musicological Society 47, no. 2 (1994): 364-85. Co-authored with David Neumeyer.