Sangheon Lee

Dr Sangheon Lee is a South Korean musicologist and musician (guitarist). He earned his PhD in musicology from Gustave Eiffel University (France) in 2022 with a dissertation exploring the musical embodiment of urgency and nihilism in early American hardcore punk, alongside the historical evolution of guitar-driven short fast rock songs. Following his doctorate, he taught popular music history, analysis, and aesthetics as a Fixed-Term Lecturer (Attaché temporaire d’enseignement et de recherche / ATER) at the same university.

Since May 2025, he has been working as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield (UK) through Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme. His current project develops a novel methodological framework for the study of popular music, using late Soviet and post-Soviet post-punk as a case study that integrates musicological, textual, and sociocultural analysis. 

Before moving to Europe, he completed a BA in French Language and Literature at Korea University (2004) and an MA at the Korea National University of Arts (2012), focusing on Richard Wagner’s writings as an ‘intellectual’ and their critical reception by François-Joseph Fétis and Charles Baudelaire. During this period, he took a five-year break from academia to lead the band Deafening Street as lyricist, composer, guitarist, and vocalist—performing widely and releasing a self-produced album in 2010. He later pursued a second MA at the University of Paris 8, where he concentrated on punk rock studies.

Dr Lee currently serves as Membership Secretary of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM), Secretary of the Society for Music Production Research (SMPR), Assistant Editor of IASPM Journal, and a member of the editorial board of Punk & Post-Punk Journal. His recent publications appear in both Anglophone and Francophone journals, including IASPM Journal, Revue Française d’Études Américaines, and Revue Musicale OICRM.