Career Booster North America: interviews with German researchers in the USA and Canada
(06/22/23) Popular music scholar Dr. Melanie Ptatscheck has been at the Music Department of New York University since summer 2022 on a Walter Benjamin fellowship awarded by the DFG. For her research project, she is looking into street music in the city’s extensive subway system and the impact of the pandemic on the living conditions and self-image of street musicians. In her interview with the DFG Office North America, she talked about subjects such as her current research project, the role of drugs in musicians’ biographies, mental health, detours, performing on stage as an ideal, passion in research and weekends behind the counter at her parents’ café in Bielefeld.
