Tyler Bickford

  • Professor

Tyler's Affiliations: Children's Literature, Global Studies Center, Cultural Studies, GSWS

Tyler Bickford teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in children’s literature and childhood studies. He advises graduate students working in those fields, as well as students studying media and technology and using ethnographic methods. He is the author of Tween Pop: Children’s Music and Public Culture (Duke University Press, 2020) and Schooling New Media: Music, Language, and Technology in Children's Culture (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Courses Taught

Seminar in Composition, ENGCMP 0200

Children and Culture, ENGLIT 0560

Childhood’s Books, ENGLIT 0562

Introduction to Science Fiction, ENGLIT 0626

Childhood Games, ENGLIT 0762

Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature, ENGLIT 1645

Children and Media, ENGFLM 1479

Children’s Literature (graduate), ENGLIT 2800

Education & Training

  • PhD in ethnomusicology, Columbia University, 2011
  • BA, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, 2001

Representative Publications

Tween Pop: Children’s Music and Public Culture (Duke University Press, 2020) 

Schooling New Media: Music, Language, and Technology in Children's Culture (Oxford University Press, 2017)

(with Kai Arne Hansen) “Negotiating Girlhood in Rock Music: Nandi Bushell, Prodigy Discourse, and Adult Mentor-fans,” Popular Music 42/2 (2023): 123–42

“The Kindie Movement: Independent Children’s Music in the United States Since 2000,” in Music in Early Childhood: Multi-disciplinary Perspectives and Inter-disciplinary Exchanges, edited by Beatriz Ilari and Susan Young, pp. 223–33 (Springer, 2019)

“Music of Poetry and Poetry of Song: Expressivity and Grammar in Vocal Performance,” Ethnomusicology 51/3 (2007): 439–76

Research Interests

Children’s Music, Children's Literature, Childhood Studies, Popular Music, Ethnographic Methods