Michael Accinno (MA) is Lecturing Fellow in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University. He holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Davis. His recent research projects explore intersections between music education and disability education; and the songs of composer William R. Dempster (1809–1871).

Michael’s work has been published in The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, and American Music. His book in progress, Gestures of Inclusion: Blindness, Music, and Pedagogy in the Nineteenth Century, traces the history of musical training at schools for the blind, state-supported institutions that spread throughout the Atlantic World during the nineteenth century.