Rose Bridges, an instructor in music, may be at the University of Mississippi only for a year-long stint, but she brings a lifetime of musical knowledge to campus in topics ranging from music history to anime.
Bridges was hired at UM for a limited time to fill in for a professor while he is away conducting research. She previously taught music history courses on the Western classical tradition, popular music, film music and contemporary Japanese music at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Florida, Towson University and Eastern Washington University.
“Once I was at UT Austin, I got to be a (teaching assistant) for classes like film music and even a course on The Beatles,” Bridges said. “I got to start putting my research interests into my teaching while being a TA for a class on hip-hop because we were given the opportunity to create a lesson based on our specific interests. I talked about Japanese hip-hop and hip-hop used in anime.”
Now at UM, she is teaching MUS 101: Introduction to Music Literature and MUS 520: Introduction to Music Research. Next semester, she will teach two undergraduate courses, MUS 302: History of Music II and MUS 101.
As a musicologist, Bridges focuses her research on film music, anime music, Japanese music, opera and popular music studies.
She is considered one of the leading scholars on music in Japanese anime, with published articles, books and dissertations examining gender, sexuality, race and religion in anime soundtracks.
Bridges has been published by Anime News Network, writing about anime outside of the topic of music. She also is the author of the 2017 book “33 1/3 Japan: Yoko Kanno’s Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack” and has published articles or chapters on anime music in the 2021 edition of the journal “Mechademia,” the 2024 book “The Palgrave Handbook of Music and Sound in Japanese Animation” and the forthcoming “Oxford Handbook of Music in Television and Routledge Companion to LGBTQ+ Media.”
Working on “33 1/3 Japan: Yoko Kanno’s Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack” was Bridges’ start in examining topics such as gender and sexuality in anime soundtracks.
“There was a lot to analyze about the music from (Cowboy Bebop), and so I pivoted to focus on gender and sexuality because I was sort of familiar with feminists and queer theory in music,” Bridges said. “There are a lot of things about identity that are looked at through a Western and American lens, but media from places like Japan doesn’t really translate that. So you kind of have to do that work yourself and immerse yourself in what that culture thinks about those topics.”
As she is currently working on a book that expands that research to examine how anime music constructs race, nationality and religion, Bridges is still figuring out how to balance being a professor with her writing and research. Despite her own workload, she takes time to encourage students to reach their goals.
“I try to encourage them to actively listen to music for fun, and they don’t always have to do it in a music theory way,” Bridges said. “I want them to spend time with music and engage with it in a way that makes them recognize that it draws them in and makes them enjoy it. Every way that we engage with music is valuable.”
Bridges first became interested in anime while attending high school, when it started to gain popularity in the United States during the early 2000s. Once in college, a close friend introduced her to an anime called “Puella Magi Madoka Magica.”
“I got really interested in watching anime and focusing on the music in it because it was so different from western cartoons,” Bridges said. “And then, I realized nobody was writing about it.”
Bridges, though likely only at the university for a short while, has enjoyed her time at UM.
“I really enjoy the school spirit of being on this campus,” Bridges said. “Other than being in Texas, I hadn’t ever been to a school really focused on sports. I don’t care for sports, but I enjoy getting to support the marching band. A lot of the music faculty got to attend the game against LSU, and getting to watch my students that are in the marching band was really special.”
She already feels the impact of her time here.
“I feel like my experience here is really helping me grow as a professor, and I have been mentored by a lot of the other professors in the department of music,” Bridges said. “I feel really nurtured and I feel like I am making my classes better because of the support I am receiving, and my students seem to be really enthusiastic.”
