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William Hagen

Faculty Member

Dr. Ross Hagen

Biography

Ross Hagen is an Associate Professor of Music Studies at Utah Valley University, focusing on musicology and ethnomusicology. He has been at UVU since 2010 and received his Ph.D. and M.M. in Musicology at the University of Colorado at Boulder and his B.A. in Music at Davidson College. His courses at UVU include the European notated tradition, popular music styles, and world music.

Dr. Hagen's research interests involve underground music scenes, black metal music, medievalism, weird fiction, and avant-garde music. Recent publications include the edited volume "Medievalism and Metal Music Studies: Throwing Down the Gauntlet" (2019) and the monograph "Darkthrone: A Blaze in the Northern Sky" for Bloomsbury's 33 & 1/3 book series (2020). Hagen is also an Assistant Editor for the academic journal Metal Music Studies. His new book, "Ancestral North: Spirituality and Cultural Imagination in Nordic Ritual Folk Music" (coauthored with Mathias Nordvig) was published by Lexington Press in 2024.

In addition to his academic work, Dr. Hagen is a performer and composer specializing in extreme metal and electronic music, and a connoisseur of all things arcane, eldritch, and absurd.

Education

PhD, University of Colorado - Boulder, 2010

Major: Musicology

MM, University of Colorado - Boulder, 2005

Major: Musicology

BA, Davidson College, 2001

Major: Music

Teaching

MUSC 349G

Global Musical Styles and Ideas GI, Spring 2025

MUSC 1010

Introduction to Music, Spring 2025

MUSC 3451

Music History and Literature II, Spring 2025

MUSC 3451

Music History and Literature II, Spring 2025

Presentations

Hagen, Ross , Metal and Change Virtual Conference, "Folk Horror and Heavy Metal's Cabin in the Woods ", University of Dayton. (October 18, 2024)

Scholarly/Creative Works

Hagen, Ross , Nordvig, Mathias , (2024) "Ancestral North_ Spirituality and Cultural Imagination in Nordic Ritual Folk Music" . Lexington. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666917567/Ancestral-North-Spirituality-and-Cultural-Imagination-in-Nordic-Ritual-Folk-Music
Hagen, Ross , Herbst, Jan , (2023) "On horseback they carried thunder_ The second lives of Norwegian black metal" (vol. Cambridge Companion to Metal Music). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hagen, Ross , Varas-Diaz, Nelson , Scott, Niall , Bardine, Bryan , (2023) "Essential Musicality_ Extreme Music and the Sounds of Everyday Life" . On Extremity_ From Sound to Images, Words and Experiences - Lexington Books.
Hagen, Ross , Sederholm, Carl , Woofter, Kristofer , (2022) "Not Not Black Metal_ Black Metal Theory and the Weird" (vol. The Weird_ A Companion). Peter Lang.
Hagen, Ross , van der Steen, Bart , Faber-Jonker, Leonor , Verburgh, Thierry P. F., (2020) "From the Dark Past_ The Historiography of Violence in Norwegian Black Metal" (vol. Subcultures between History and Mythmaking_ Researching the Cultural Memory of Youth Subcultures, 1955 – present). UK: Palgrave-MacMillan.
Hagen, Ross , (2020) "Darkthrone's A Blaze in the Northern Sky" . UK: Bloomsbury. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/darkthrones-a-blaze-in-the-northern-sky-9781501354335/