Ms. Brenna Miller

Professional Background

Brenna Miller is a doctoral student of musicology and music theory at Ohio State University, where she is also pursuing a graduate minor in folklore and holds a Graduate Enrichment Fellowship. Miller is an inaugural recipient of the Career Development Grant in American Music from the American Musicological Society, serves as the treasurer for the Folklore Student Association, and is engaged with the EMIC Graduate Student Interest Group for Expressive Culture.

Miller holds a bachelor's degree in Woodwind Performance and English from Florida State University, where she also received an IDEA Grant for her undergraduate thesis project, the Tallahassee Music Map. Her thesis project was later presented at the President’s Showcase for Undergraduate Research Excellence, the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference, and selected for the Project Enhancement Network and Incubator (PEN & Inc) Digital Humanities Program.

Fellowship Research

While at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Summer Graduate Student Research Fellow, Miller will work on her research project, “Sounding and Performing Jewish Cultural Community in Shanghai, China.” Her project investigates how cultural establishments and organizations such as bands, amateur theatre troupes, and casual sports teams contributed to place-making for the displaced European Jews. Through a comparative analysis of contested space, identity, and agency, Millers' research examines the community network within Jewish society to recognize the connections to Shanghai's surrounding neighborhoods and institutions. The USHMM collections will allow Miller to build a spatial understanding of Shanghai and reconstruct cultural performances and events using recorded interviews, memoirs, newspapers, and programs.

Residency Period: June 1, 2024–August 31, 2024