Publications

Editions

David Ivey, Lauren R. Bock, Helen Brown, Richard Ivey, Jesse P. Karlsberg, Nathan Rees, Karen Rollins, Terry Wootten, and David Wright, eds., The Sacred Harp: 2025 Edition (Carrollton, GA: Sacred Harp Publishing Company, 2025). [Shape-note tunebook in print since 1844.]

Media coverage:

• Steve Osunsami, “The Tradition of ‘Sacred Harp’ Music Lives on in the South,” ABC News Live, December 4, 2025.
• Laura Atkinson and Justin Hicks, “Shapes of America: A Radio Special about Shape-Note Singing,” NPR, December 15, 2025.
  • Scott Simon, “What Is Shape Note Singing? Here’s an Overview of this American Tradition,” NPR, February 21, 2026.
  • Lucy Grindon, “Latest Update of 1844 American Songbook Reflects New Generation of Sacred Harp Singers,” NPR, September 25, 2025.
  • Laura Atkinson, “An Early American Music Tradition Gets a Major Update—and a Younger Audience,” NPR, September 21, 2025.
  • Justin Hicks, “A Book of Religious Tunes First Printed in 1844 Is Getting an Upgrade,” NPR, June 25, 2025.
• Holly Meyer, “It’s Not a Reprint. Why Sacred Harp Singers Are Revamping an Iconic pre–Civil War Hymnal,” Associated Press, May 29, 2025.
  • Jessie Wardarski and Holly Meyer, “Video: Sacred Harp Singers Revamp an Iconic Pre–Civil War Hymnal,” Associated Press, May 29, 2025.
  • Jessie Wardarski, “AP Photos: A 180-year-old Singing Tradition Is Getting a New Edition of Its Beloved Hymnal” Associated Press, May 29, 2025.
  • Holly Meyer and Jessie Wardarski, “Who Are the Sacred Harp Singers Using a More Than 180-year-old Hymnal Today,” Associated Press, May 29, 2025.
  • Holly Meyer, “Takeaways From Ap’s Report on Why Pre-civil War Hymnal The Sacred Harp is Getting an Update,” Associated Press, May 29, 2025.
• Douglas Salter, “Sacred Harp Celebrates New Edition at 120th Convention,” Carrollton Times-Georgian, October 16, 2025.

Joseph Stephen James, ed., Original Sacred Harp: Centennial Edition, Centennial Edition ed., Jesse P. Karlsberg (Atlanta, GA: Pitts Theology Library; Carrollton, GA: Sacred Harp Publishing Company, 2015 [1911]).

Media coverage:

• Amy Kiley, “Shape-note Singers Revive the 1911 Sacred Harp,” WABE [Atlanta’s NPR station], March 2, 2015.
• Jesse P. Karlsberg, “Old Strings on a New Harp,” Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 4, no. 1 (May 28, 2015).
• Susan Carini and Laura Douglas-Brown, “Feast of Words Celebrates Emory Authors,” Emory Report (February 4, 2016). [Reprinted in Emory Magazine (Spring 2016).]

Joseph Stephen James and Seaborn McDaniel Denson, eds., Sacred Tunes and Hymns (1913): A Scholarly Edition, scholarly edition ed., Jesse P. Karlsberg (under contract with University of North Carolina Press).

Book

Fasola Americans (manuscript in preparation).

Dissertation

“Folklore’s Filter: Race, Place, and Sacred Harp Singing” (Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 2015), https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/n009w256n.

Awards:

• Honorable Mention, Wiley Housewright Dissertation Award, Society for American Music.
• Finalist, Allan Nevins Dissertation Prize, Society of American Historians.

Media coverage:

• Phillip Lutz, “A Different Note on Race at Yale,” New York Times, January 2, 2016.

Refereed Journal Articles and Book Chapters

“Selectively Staging the ‘Beloved Community’: Sacred Harp Singing and Racial Politics in the Folk Revival.” In Oxford Handbook of Community Singing, edited by Esther Morgan-Ellis and Kay Norton, 706–28. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2024.

“Spiritual Concert-Fundraisers, Singing Conventions, and Cherokee Language Learning Academies: Vernacular Southern Hymnbooks in Noncongregational Settings.” Yale Journal of Music and Religion 9, no. 1 (2023). With Kaylina Madison Crawley and Sarah Snyder Hopkins. https://doi.org/10.17132/2377-231X.1237.

“The Folk Scholarship Roots and Geopolitical Boundaries of Sacred Harp’s Global Twenty-first Century,” Country Dance + Song Online 2 (April 2019), https://cdss.org/publications/read/cds/cds-volume-2/the-folk-scholarship-roots-and-geopolitical-boundaries-of-sacred-harps-global-twenty-first-century-2/.

• Reprinted in Christian Sacred Music in the Americas, edited by Andrew Shenton and Joanna Smolko, 221–40. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021.

“Genre Spanning in the Close and Dispersed Harmony Shape-Note Songs of Sidney Whitfield Denson and Orin Adolphus Parris,” American Music 35, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 94–132.

“Ireland’s First Sacred Harp Convention: ‘To Meet To Part No More,’” Southern Spaces, November 30, 2011, https://doi.org/10.18737/M7089Q.

Book Series and Journal Special Issue

Sounding Spirit: Critical Editions from the Southern Sacred Music Diaspora, 1850–1925. Series of digital and print critical editions. Series editor-in-chief. University of North Carolina Press.

Toward a Critically Engaged Digital Practice: American Studies and the Digital Humanities. Special issue of American Quarterly 70, no. 3 (2018). Co-editor, with Matthew Delmont, Amy Earhart, Susan Garfinkel, Angel David Nieves, and Lauren Tilton.

Digital Humanities Projects

Sounding Spirit Digital Library. Digital thematic research collections of vernacular southern sacred music, 1850–1925. Project director. Beta, April 2025.

Readux. Open source digital platform display, annotate, and export digitized books. Lead developer, version 1, Rebecca Koeser. Lead developers, version 2, Jay Varner with Ben Brumfield and Sara Brumfield. Product manager, version 1, Sara Palmer. Project coordinator, version 2, Joanna Mundy. Product owner, version 2, Jesse P. Karlsberg. Version 1.8, August 2017; Version 2, April 2020.

Sacred Harp Minutes Research Data. Database and API collecting proceedings from 12,000+ Sacred Harp singings, 1945–present, enhanced with GIS and music information data. Project director. Forthcoming, August 2026.

Unpacking Manuel’s Tavern. Digital archive with high resolution photography and immersive multimedia documenting a tavern key to Atlanta’s political and cultural history. Project manager. 2016.

FaSoLa Minutes. iOS and Android application enabling users to read, search, and interpret minutes recording the proceedings of Sacred Harp singings taken from 1992–present. Programmed by Mark Godfrey and Mike Richards. Designed by Lauren Bock. Project manager, Jesse P. Karlsberg. Version 1.0, 2013; Version 2.0, 2015.

• Review: Clarissa Fetrow, “There’s an App for That: A Review of the ‘FaSoLa Minutes’ App,” Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 3, no. 2 (November 12, 2014).
• Analysis: David Brodeur and David Smead, “Entropy Unpacked: The Entropy Number from ‘FaSoLa Minutes,’” Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 5, no. 1 (August 22, 2016).

New Compositions in the Style of The Sacred Harp. Web site featuring new tunes, written in the styles of The Sacred Harp, by composers from the United States and the United Kingdom. Programmed, designed, and edited by Jesse P. Karlsberg. 2007–2022. Redeveloped with Steve Brett, 2022.

Reports

“Interinstitutional Thematic Collection Development: Technical and Procedural Considerations from the Sounding Spirit Digital Library.” White paper for the National Endowment for the Humanities, July 2020. (With Erin Fulton.)

“The Digital Drawer: A Crowd-Sourced, Curated, Digital Archive Preserving History and Memory.” White paper for the National Endowment for the Humanities, November 16, 2020. (With Scott Robertson.)

Datasets

“Checklist of Southern Sacred Music Imprints, 1850–1925.” Sounding Spirit Dataverse, 2020. (With Erin Fulton.)

Technical Standards and Documentation

For the Sounding Spirit Digital Library

“Advanced and Music Metadata Research Guide.” Sounding Spirit Collaborative Knowledge Commons, 2024. (With Erin Fulton and Rachel Shapiro.)

“Metadata Entry Guide and Instructions.” Sounding Spirit Collaborative Knowledge Commons, 2023. (With Erin Fulton, Sara Palmer, Em Nordling, Lucy Wallitsch, and Meredith Doster.)

“Digitization Standards.” Sounding Spirit Collaborative Knowledge Commons, 2022. (With Sarah Dorpinghaus, Sara Palmer, Kay-Michael Würzner, Ann McShane, Meredith Doster, and Erin Fulton.)

“Metadata Application Profile.” Sounding Spirit Collaborative Knowledge Commons, 2022. (With Erin Fulton, Lucy Wallitsch, Em Nordling, and Sara Palmer.)

“Metadata Values Statement.” Sounding Spirit Collaborative Knowledge Commons, 2022. (With Em Nordling, Lucy Wallitsch, Cory K. Lampert, Diana Folsom, Erin Fulton, and Meredith Doster.)

“Metadata Subject Headings.” Sounding Spirit Collaborative Knowledge Commons, 2022. (With Erin Fulton and Rachel Shapiro.)

“Condition Assessment Guide and Spreadsheet Template.” Sounding Spirit Collaborative Knowledge Commons, 2021. (With Ann McShane, Erin Fulton, Lucy Wallitsch, Rachel Morris, and Sara Palmer.)

“Prioritized Criteria for Bibliographic Research.” Sounding Spirit Collaborative Knowledge Commons, 2019. (With Erin Fulton and Meredith Doster.)

Selected Non-Refereed Articles

“Sing On! Georgia Rolls into its Third Century of Singing The Sacred Harp.” Georgia Backroads 24, no. 2 (Summer 2025). (With Nathan Rees and Bill DuPre.)

“Raymond Cooper Hamrick: Sacred Harp Craftsman,” Georgia Music News 72, no. 2 (Winter 2011): 74–76.

Articles for Southern Spaces

• “Joshua McCarter Simpson’s ‘To the White People of America’ (1854),” Southern Spaces Blog, June 30, 2020.
• “Mapping the ‘Big Minutes’: Visualizing Sacred Harp’s Geographic Coalescence and Expansion, 1995–2014,” Southern Spaces Blog, January 23, 2018 (with Robert A. W. Dunn).
• “Southern Spaces: A Partial History,” Southern Spaces, September 28, 2017 (with Martin Halbert, Katherine Skinner, Allen Tullos, Sarah Toton, Franky Abbott, Katie Rawson, Meredith Doster, Mary Battle, and Sarah Melton).
• “Renewing Multimedia Scholarly Publishing: A Streamlined and Mobile-Friendly Design for Southern Spaces,” Southern Spaces Blog, August 19, 2015.
• “Readership Reports and the Benefits of Open Access Publishing,” Southern Spaces Blog, November 13, 2013 (with Sarah Melton and Alan G. Pike).
• “Sacred Harp, ‘Poland Style,’” Southern Spaces Blog, February 27, 2013.
• “Place and Pluralism: The ‘Georgia Harmonies’ Traveling Exhibition,” Southern Spaces Blog, June 5, 2012.

Articles for the Country Dance and Song Society News

• “Singing Across the Color Line: Reflections on The Colored Sacred Harp,” Country Dance and Song Society News (Summer 2016): 14–17.
• “Imagining ‘The Last Words of Copernicus,’” Country Dance and Song Society News (Winter 2013–2014): 19–21. (Update: “Stitched Together: S. M. Denson’s Alto Part for ‘The Last Words of Copernicus.’”)
• “‘Come Sound His Praise Abroad’: Sacred Harp Singing across Europe,” Country Dance and Song Society News (Winter 2012–2013): 9–12.

Articles for the Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter

• “Orin Adolphus Parris: At Home Across the Shape-Note Music Spectrum,” Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 6, no. 1 (September 1, 2017).
• “Raymond C. Hamrick’s Contributions to Sacred Harp Singing and Scholarship,” Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 5, no. 2 (December 31, 2016).
• “Regional Roots: Growing Sacred Harp in the Netherlands, Alaska, and British Columbia,” Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 4, no. 2 (December 31, 2015).
• “Seasonal Songs,” Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 4, no. 2 (December 31, 2015), (with Mark T. Godfrey).
• “Old Strings on a New Harp,” Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 4, no. 1 (May 28, 2015).
• “Elphrey Heritage: Northern Contributor to the Nineteenth-century Sacred Harp,” Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 3, no. 2 (November 11, 2014), (with Christopher Sawula).
• “A Brief History of A Brief History of the Sacred Harp,” Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 3, no. 2 (November 11, 2014).
• “The Cold Mountain Bump: Hollywood’s Effect on Sacred Harp Songs and Singers,” Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 2, no. 3 (December 31, 2013), (with Mark T. Godfrey and Nathan Rees).
• “Bruce Springsteen’s Sacred Harp Sample,” Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 1, no. 1 (March 28, 2012), (with John Plunkett).

Articles for the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship Project Team Blog

• “Teaching Atlanta Remotely” Emory Center for Digital Scholarship Project Team Blog, Remote Teaching Reflection Series (January 27, 2021).
• “Sacred Harp in the Absence of Presence,” Emory Center for Digital Scholarship Project Team Blog (May 22, 2020).

Typeface

“Collins.” Shape-note music typeface drawing on historical research in vernacular American music publishing. Slanted Hall Type Foundry, 2026. (With Jeff Kellem.)

Selected Shape-note Music

“Ephesus,” “Trembling Spirit,” “Seiler,” “Farewell Brethren,” “Hamrick,” and “Thomaston,” in David Ivey, Lauren R. Bock, Helen Brown, Richard Ivey, Jesse P. Karlsberg, Nathan K. Rees, Karen Rollins, Terry Wootten, and David B. Wright, eds., The Sacred Harp: 2025 Edition (Carrollton, GA: Sacred Harp Publishing Company, 2025), 188–89, 213, 231, 414, 571, 574.

“Douglasville” and “Wilscot,” in Myles Louis Dakan, John W. DelRe, Leyland W. DelRe, Nora Dunn, Rachel Wells Hall, Daniel Hunter, Kelly Macklin, and Robert Stoddard, eds., The Shenandoah Harmony (Berryville, VA: Shenandoah Harmony Publishing Company, 2013), 142, 434–435.

“National Blessings,” in Johnny Lee and Karen Willard, eds., The Sacred Harp: Revised Cooper Edition (Samson, AL: Sacred Harp Book Company, 2012), 594.

“Clinton,” “Hamrick,” and “Newton,” in Larry Gordon, Anthony Barrand, and Carole Moody Compton, eds., Northern Harmony (Marshfield, VT: Northern Harmony Publishing Company, 2012),  46–47, 104, 178–179.

Tunes in The Trumpet

• “Waddell Street,” The Trumpet 4, no. 2 (December 2014): 178.
• “Anniston,” The Trumpet 3, no. 3 (November 2013): 148.
• “Farewell Brethren,” The Trumpet 3, no. 3 (November 2013): 148.
• “Akerman,” The Trumpet 3, no. 1 (February 2013): 102–103.
• “Now I Was Free,” The Trumpet 2, no. 2 (May 2012): 80–81.
• “Clinton,” The Trumpet 2, no. 1 (January 2012): 49.
• “Auburndale,” The Trumpet 1, no. 2 (June 2011): 21.

Multimedia Productions

Alabama and Georgia Sacred Harp Oral History Project Collection. Director and oral historian, 2026.

Shapes of America: A Radio Special about Shape-Note Singing. Mid-South Radio Network. Historical advisor and fact checker, 2025.

White House Soul of America Gospel Concert. White House/National Endowment for the Humanities gospel and spirituals concert, produced by TV One. Historical commentator and advisor, 2022.

“‘Within Thy Circling Pow’r I Stand’: Immersive Video from Sacred Harp’s Hollow Square.” Southern Spaces (January 29, 2020). With Steve Bransford.

Songs of the Sacred Harp. Half-hour BBC Radio 4 documentary on Sacred Harp singing’s history and recent spread to Europe. Narrated by Cerys Matthews. Produced and edited by Joby Waldman. Main interview subject and historical advisor, Jesse P. Karlsberg. 2013.

Book Reviews

Review of Burford, Mark, Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Notes 78, no. 4 (June 2022): 544–46.

Review of Cooke, Nym, American Harmony: Inspired Choral Miniatures. Boston, MA: David R. Godine, 2017. Journal of the Society for American Music 16, no. 2 (May 2022): 240–43.

Review of by Conforth, Bruce M., African American Folksong and American Cultural Politics: The Lawrence Gellert Story, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013, Society for American Music Bulletin 42, no. 1 (Winter 2016): 23–26.