Julian Saporiti is a musician and scholar whose interdisciplinary work bridges academic research, public humanities, and musical performance. He earned his Ph.D. in American Studies from Brown University, where his dissertation on Asian American history and transpacific cultural exchange evolved into No-No Boy, a multimedia song-based project that brings understudied histories to wide public audiences through performance, recording, and visual media. By transforming his doctoral research into accessible but nuanced folk songs, Saporiti has shared complicated stories of war, immigration, identity, empire and race with thousands of listeners.

His work has been described by NPR Music as “one of the most insurgent pieces of music you’ll ever hear,” praised by No Depression as “reminiscent of Dylan,” and featured on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. He has performed and lectured at dozens of colleges and universities, including recent residencies at Stanford, Yale, Vanderbilt, the University of Florida, and Virginia Tech. These visits combine concerts with lectures, faculty collaborations, and student workshops, modeling innovative ways to translate research into public-facing formats and teaching on specific research topics such as jazz bands in Japanese American Incarceration Camps, or Southeast Asian rock n' roll made in the face of American empire.

Saporiti has held faculty appointments at Colorado College, Brown, and Wyoming, and has worked with numerous museums, libraries, and public schools to expand the reach of historical storytelling through sound and art. No-No Boy has been featured in exhibitions at the Wing Luke Museum (Seattle) and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art (New Orleans). Saporiti also composes and produces for educational podcasts, including The Historian’s Table and Those Who Can’t Teach Anymore.

In recent years, Saporiti’s work has expanded to include research and creative collaborations with scientists and environmentalists. This ecological turn began in 2020, when he was asked to visit a small Inupiaq island in Alaska to help students collect oral histories from their elders and turn their stories into art. Many of these stories centered on eroding landscapes, melting sea ice, and the looming reality of becoming climate refugees. Since 2023, Saporiti has served as the musician-in-residence at Portland’s Hoyt Arboretum, where he creates site-specific music for trails and composes songs rooted in botanical research. New collaborations with researchers at Oregon State University and the University of Florida extend this work to regional forests and landscapes.

Whether working in classrooms, concert halls, archives, or the field, Saporiti’s guiding mission is to help colleagues and students alike imagine more public, creative, and emotionally resonant ways to share scholarly work. He welcomes opportunities for short-term residencies, interdisciplinary collaborations, curriculum development, and future academic appointments.

​

Dr. Saporiti currently lives in Oregon with his wife and collaborator Emilia, where he spends as much time outdoors as possible.