Dr Harvey G. Cohen

Before joining King's College London in September 2006, Harvey Cohen was a Postdoctoral Fellow / Resident Scholar at the John W. Kluge Center, at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., where completed the research for his book Duke Ellington's America (University of Chicago Press, 2010).

Harvey Cohen teaches about the history and business of popular music and film; the history of museums and the publishing industry; the business issues facing cultural industries; and American and African American history. In previous teaching positions he has also taught the Harlem Renaissance and the cultural history of New York City.

Harvey Cohen's work has appeared in the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Independent (UK), and on the BBC. He is also the Music Supervisor for Films By Youth Inside (FYI), an ongoing non-profit program in Los Angeles that provides educational and creative options to incarcerated youth. Program participants learn the basics of screenwriting and filmmaking from film industry professionals and create short films expressive of their own life experiences.
 

Harvey Cohen earned his doctorate in history from the University of Maryland in 2002. He taught at the University of Maryland for three years, using American music and film to trace significant themes in American culture and history from the colonial era to the present day.
 
 

"Dawn of the Jazz Age: Sir Duke Ellington's Adventures in Britain" The Independent (13 November 2008):
(http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/dawn-of-the-jazz-age-sir-duke-ellingtons-adventures-in-britain-1015212.html)
 
 
"In His Own Words: Ellington's Ode to Black History", Washington Post (20 February 2005)
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37099-2005Feb19.html?sub=new)
 
“Music In The History Classroom”, Perspectives (American Historical Association) (Fall 2005).
 
“Duke Ellington and Black, Brown, and Beige: The Composer As Historian at Carnegie Hall”, American Quarterly (December 2004).
 
“The Marketing of Duke Ellington: Setting the Strategy For A Black Maestro”, Journal of African American History (Fall 2004).
 
Fifteen short essays on viewing American history through the prism of American music, covering the years 1759-1982, with an accompanying compact disc, included in John M. Murrin, Paul E. Johnson, James M. McPherson, Gary Gerstle, Emily S. Rosenberg, Norman L. Rosenberg, Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson, 4th Edition, 2004).
 
Short biographies of Duke Ellington, James Reese Europe, and George Gershwin for The Harlem Renaissance Encyclopedia (Fitzroy-Dearborn, 2004).
 
“Battleground Ohio: Liberals Mobilize,” Baltimore Sun (11 October 2004).
 
"Bob Dylan, Icon of American Art," Baltimore Sun (15 July 2001).
 
"Duke’s Music Helped Bring U.S. Together," Baltimore Sun (27 February 2001).
 
Short biographies of Del Shannon, Clarence Williams, and Wolfman Jack for American National Biography (Oxford University Press, 1999).
 
“Lounge Lizards,” Raygun (December 1993).