Profile

Biography

I was born and raised in Northern France in a working class Polish migrant family. After being awarded a BA in Sociology, a Masters and a Masters by Research at the University of Lille (France), I moved to Australia to complete a PhD in Sociology at Griffith University.

Before joining the University of York in June 2021, I held a teaching fellow position at the University of Bristol (Bristol, UK; 2015-2016), a postdoctoral fellowship at Griffith University (Brisbane, Australia; 2017-2020), and a teaching and research fellow position at Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris, France; 2020-2021).

Departmental Roles

• Deputy Chair of Department Education Committee (PGT)
• Programme Lead for the MA Social Research

Research

Overview

My research is located in the areas of music consumption and music taste, the materiality of digital objects, popular music heritage, hobbies and craft, and cultural transformations as mediated by digital technologies. 

Publications

Selected publications

• Nowak, R. (2026). 'Railway modelling as object relation'. Journal for Cultural Research, 30(3), 548–564.
• Nowak, R. (2026). 'The procedures of investigating academic misconduct'. Journal of Academic Ethics, 24(55), 1-21.
• Glevarec, H. and Nowak, R. (2025). Les Goûts Musicaux des Français·es. Préférences, Valeurs d'Usage et Compétences, Le Bord de l'Eau.
• Haynes, J. and Nowak, R. (2025). 'When is a music audience? The challenges of a sociological perspective of music audiences in the platform age' in The Intellect Handbook of Popular Music Methodologies, Intellect.
• Glevarec, H., Combes, C., Nowak, R. and Cibois, P. (2025). 'Les sorties culturelles des français·es : cartographie des pratiques, analyse des motivations', Terrains/Théories, 19.
• Nichols, E., Pavlidis, A., and Nowak, R. (2024). ‘“It’s like lifting the power”: Powerlifting, digital gendered subjectivities, and the politics of multiplicity’, Leisure Sciences, 46(3), 254-73.
• Whelan, A. and Nowak, R. (2024). 'The ebbs and flows of online music genres' in The Oxford Handbook of World Popular Music, Oxford University Press.
• Glevarec, H., Combes, C., Nowak, R. and Cibois, P. (2024). Sortir. Sociologie des Sorties Culturelles des Français, Le Bord de l'Eau.
• Baker, S., Cantillon, Z. and Nowak, R. (2023). Popular Music Heritage, Cultural Justice and the Deindustrialising City, Cambridge University Press
• Whelan, A. and Nowak, R., (2023). Genre work: "How" vs "what" questions in the sociology of music culture. Sociological Review, 71(3), 491-507
• Glevarec, H. and Nowak, R. (2023). 'Structure and historicity of youth music tastes: A brief overview of forty years of theoretical debates', in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music and Youth Culture, Bloomsbury.
• Nowak, R. (2023). 'Youth, identity and everyday sound environments in the age of digital technologies', in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music and Youth Culture, Bloomsbury.
• Nowak, R. (2022). 'Curating listening: The cultural production of a (commercial) experience', in Remaking Culture and Music Spaces: Affects, Infrastructures, Futures, Routledge.
• Nowak, R. (2022). 'Mobile listening cultures', in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music, Space and Place, Bloomsbury.
• Nowak, R. and Bennett, A. (2022). Music Sociology. Value, Technology, and Identity, London: Routledge.
• Glevarec, H. and Nowak, R., (2022). Déclarer son goût musical. Codage et analyse d’une question ouverte sur les préférences des Français. SociologieS, 1-42
• Glevarec, H. and Nowak, R., (2022). La compétence culturelle. Pour un modèle socio-culturelle de la catégorisation musicale. Terrains/Théories, 15, 1-38

Teaching

Overview

In the Sociology Department, I teach at all undergraduate year levels, particularly in the areas of social theory, sociological theory, popular culture and media, digital media, cultural sociology, and research design and methods. At postgraduate level, I teach in the areas of digital technologies and cultural sociology, as well as research design and methods. 

Supervision

I supervise PhD students working in the areas of cultural sociology, media studies, and sports. 

External Activity

Overview

I am on the editorial board of the following journals:

• Cultural Sociology
• Terrains/Théories
• Journal of World Popular Music