Mimi Haddon Interview (What Is Post-Punk? Genre and Identity in Avant-Garde Popular Music, 1977-82)
Dr. Mimi Haddon is Lecturer in Music at the University of Sussex and author of What Is Post-Punk? Genre and Identity in Avant-Garde Popular Music, 1977-82, which grew out of her doctoral dissertation. In this excerpt from our interview, Mimi talks about the peer review process.
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
I grew up in an ex-mining town in South Yorkshire, England. Secondary school was a bit hairy, so playing music became a mode of survival for me and my friends. We played in the local jazz orchestra together (I play sax), and we listened to mostly rock, jazz, and grunge.
I studied music for my undergraduate degree at King’s College in London but, although I made some brilliant friends there, I often felt out of place—I wasn’t privately educated, I didn’t ski, and I couldn’t spontaneously harmonise the national anthem, which was a requirement of one particular drinking game! So, in my final year, I turned my attention back to popular music because that somehow felt more aligned with who I was. I then did a Master’s degree at Oxford in Musicology, focusing again on popular music.