David Novak’s work explores the relationship between modern cultures and the circulation of musical media. His research interests include globalization of popular music, experimental culture, environmental sound, social practices of listening and intermedia. Before coming to UC Santa Barbara, he taught at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University, where he was appointed in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities. Novak is the author of Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation, (Duke University Press, publication forthcoming). The book is an ethnography of Noise, an experimental electronic music, developed over several years of multi-sited fieldwork among Japanese and North American practitioners and listeners. His current research focuses on the politics of sound in urban Japan, particularly in the impact of noise regulations on homeless and migrant labor communities in South Osaka. He is the founder of the Music and Sound Interest Group in the American Anthropological Association.