Dr Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta’s book Together, Somehow: Music, Affect, and Intimacy on the Dancefloor (Duke U Press, 2023) has won its third major award from music research societies.
The International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) awarded their 2025 Book Prize to Dr Garcia-Mispireta, saying: “Together, Somehow stood out as an exemplary contribution to popular music studies—innovative, engaging, and conceptually rich.”
One jury member praised Dr Garcia-Mispireta’s writing , stating that “the author applies concepts like ‘stranger-intimacy’ in a way that allows the reader to rethink the relationship between sound, affect, and collectivity.”
Dr Garcia-Mispireta said of the award: "It is an honour to be recognised by an international scholarly society such as IASPM; it is also deeply validating to see recognition for research on stigmatized groups and genres. My thanks go to the Book Prize committee, as well as congratulations to co-awardee Corey J. Miles.”
Previously, the US chapter of the IASPM awarded Together, Somehow the Woody Guthrie Book Award. Named after the iconic folk singer-songwriter, the prize recognises the most exceptional book on popular music published each year. The book was also awarded the Ruth Stone Prize for Best First Monograph by the Society for Ethnomusicology.
In the months since the books release, Dr Garcia-Mispireta has been delivering conference keynotes on his latest research project, ‘From the Bottoms Up: Queer Nightlife, Grassroots Rave Collectives, and Community Caregiving’. The project examines the intersection of queerness and ‘grassroots’ activism in queer electronic music scenes. His current work looks at how the queer electronic music communities of Berlin responded to the impact of COVID-19.
