Daniel Cavicchi

Daniel Cavicchi is an American studies scholar, with teaching and research interests in popular culture and history, especially fandom, media, music, and reception. His books include Admirers, Fanciers, and Devotees: The Early History of Fandom, co-edited with Stephan Michael Schröder (2026); Listening and Longing: Music Lovers in the Age of Barnum (2011, winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award); Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning Among Springsteen Fans (1998, runner-up for the Woody Guthrie Book Award); and My Music: Explorations of Music in Daily Life (1993), with Charles Keil and Susan D. Crafts. He has published numerous essays, the most recent of which have explored audience iconography, historical fandom, and the reception of discarded objects.

Cavicchi’s public humanities work includes the Witness Tree Project, a long-standing history and design curriculum with the National Park Service; multiple exhibits for the Grammy Museum; K-12 curricula for Seattle’s Experience Music Project and PBS; and board/committee service for the NEH and several arts nonprofits. He established the Pop Conference with Eric Weisbard in 2001 and was the inaugural editor of Wesleyan University Press’s Music/Interview Series. He has served on the editorial boards of Ethnography, American Music, and Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies and has lectured about his work globally, including in Brazil, China, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the US.

He is the recipient of both the 1996 President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from Brown University and the 2004 John R. Frazier Award for Excellence in Teaching from RISD. He also has served RISD in multiple administrative roles, including Head of History, Philosophy, and the Social Sciences, Dean of Liberal Arts, Associate Provost for Research/Global/Practice, Vice Provost, and Provost.