The 'New Gospel Music Studies' is here to stay, and Healing for the Soul is a shining example of why. With it, Braxton Shelley emerges as a leading and incisive voice of this exciting movement. This profound and illuminating book could only have been written by someone who's spent years on the cultural frontline: in the pulpit, behind a Hammond B-3 organ, and immersed in the archives of gospel music's history and lived experiences. If you're looking for a
musical, theological, and sociological explanation of the technology of gospel music's preoccupation with transcendence, search no further. Healing for the Soul will 'take you higher.
Minister, musician, and musicologist, Braxton D. Shelley is an assistant professor in the Department of Music at Harvard University, and the Stanley A Marks and William H Marks Assistant Professor in Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. After earning a BA in Music and History from Duke University, Shelley received his PhD in the History and Theory of Music at the University of Chicago. Alongside his scholarly and practical investment in
African American gospel music, Shelley's research and critical interests extend into media studies, sound studies, phenomenology, homiletics, and theology.