After long production delays, the volume has been released that contains my article about the neurophysiology of ballad singing:

http://scalar.usc.edu/works/ballads-and-performance-the-multi-modal-stage-in-early-modern-england/ballads-on-the-brain----pamela-reinagel

This article was written for a volume "Ballads and Performance: The Multimodal Stage in Early Modern England", ed. P. Fumerton, by the Early Modern Center (EMC Imprint), which I confess is anchored in a field very far from my own academic area.

Writing this article was a stretch for me both as a neuroscientist - to communicate my neuroscience research to a non-science audience; and as a ballad singer - to share some speculations and thoughts I've had about how the effects of ballad singing on the brain might inform our understanding of its role in popular culture. One might call it Neuroethology of Ethnomusicology...

For those who asked for pre-prints: this is the same text, but now the audio illustrations are present, and hopefully the interactive format facilitates the connection between common-language terms and technical ones.

Best,
Pamela R.