This spring Kelsey McGinnis successfully defended her dissertation and received her Ph.D. in Musicology.

Titled “A Captive Enemy Audience: Music and the Reeducation of German POWs in the United States,” Dr. McGinnis’s dissertation draws on research conducted at the U.S. National Archives and the Iowan Camp Algona POW Archive to consider how musical activities in the camps were experienced and valued differently. Kelsey considers the perspective of government officials who hoped music might help sway German prisoners to embrace democracy. Dr. McGinnis’s work also reflects on the prisoners, whose varied musical activities provided a means for reckoning with internment.