Sean Williams

Sean Williams teaches writing, ethnomusicology, and cultural studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She received the Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Washington (1990), with an emphasis in the musics of Indonesia and Ireland. She has a social media alter ego named "Captain Grammar Pants" on Facebook, which led to the creation of English Grammar: 100 Tragically Common Mistakes (and How to Correct Them) (Zephyros Press, 2019).

Her books in ethnomusicology include The Sound of the Ancestral Ship: Highland Music of West Java (Oxford, 2001), The Ethnomusicologists’ Cookbook, v.1 and 2 (Routledge, 2006 and 2014), Irish Traditional Music, 1st and 2nd editions (Routledge, 2010 and 2020), Bright Star of the West: Joe Heaney, Irish Song-Man (Oxford, 2011), and Musics of the World (2022). She has had articles published in The New Hibernia Review, Béaloideas, Asian Music, The Companion to Irish Traditional Music, Current Musicology, The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Yearbook for Traditional Music, The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, and several edited volumes.