Morgan James Luker received a PhD in ethnomusicology with distinction from Columbia University in 2009, and is currently serving as Associate Lecturer of Ethnomusicology and Music History at the UW-Madison School of Music. At the UW, Morgan is teaching courses in ethnomusicology and historical musicology at the undergraduate and graduate levels, including Survey of Music in the Twentieth Century; Introduction to Music Cultures of the World; Music Cultures of the World: Africa, the Middle East, Iran, India; and the Proseminar in Ethnomusicology.

Morgan's primary research project examines new ways in which tango, Argentina's “national” genre of popular music, has been drawn upon and used as a cultural and/or economic resource within the city of Buenos Aires following the devastating Argentine economic crisis of late 2001, ethnographically locating concerns with tango as both music and culture within the broader cultural ideologies and managerial regimes that necessarily frame the genre as it is practiced in Buenos Aires today. He is also embarking on a new research project on the life and music of Carlos Gardel (1880-1935), the emblematic Argentine tango singer and icon of Latin American popular culture. This project will explore how and why tango emerged as a national genre in late 19th and early 20th century Argentina, situating that process within the transnational circulation of people, technologies, cultures, and representations rather than any nationalizing mythologies.

Morgan has also conducted research on jazz, world music, and the music of the 20th and 21st century avant-garde. His work has been published in Latin American Music Review and presented at professional conferences throughout the US, Latin America, and Europe.