Mathew Swiatlowski


  • Ph.D., American Studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  • M.A., American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston
  • B.A., English, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Mathew Swiatlowski joined the Lenoir-Rhyne faculty in 2022 as a visiting assistant professor and teaches courses in history. His areas of interest include U.S. history, American studies and the cultural history of popular music and sound recordings.

His current book project, “The Sound of Ethnic America: ‘Foreign-Language’ Recordings and the Sonics of U.S. Citizenship,” charts the history of early musical recordings made by and for immigrant populations in the U.S., offering a sonic portrait of a multiracial, multiethnic and multilingual America across the opening decades of the 20th century. Additionally, he has an essay in the collection “American Contact: Intercultural Encounter and the History of the Book” (University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming), edited by Glenda Goodman and Rhae Lynn Barnes, on the circuitous journey of an album by the Haitian group Les Fantaisistes De Carrefour, from a 1960s recording studio in Port-au-Prince to his record shelf in Iowa City in 2020, where he was living at the time.

Swiatlowski currently resides in Hickory, North Carolina, where he enjoys time with his family, their two cats and too many records, tapes and CDs.