Monique Ingalls, PhD

Education

Ph.D., Anthropology of Music, University of Pennsylvania (2008)
B.A., Music, John Brown University (2003)

Academic Interests and Research

Christian congregational music; gospel music in global perspective; religious music in digital culture; the music of global Pentecostalism; the role of congregational music in community creation, boundary formation, and conciliation

Biography

Monique Ingalls joined the Baylor church music faculty in 2014. Prior to her appointment at Baylor, she was a postdoctoral teaching fellow at the University of Cambridge and Senior Research Fellow at Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music. Her research has been published widely in several fields, including ethnomusicology, church music, religious studies, media studies, and practical theology.

Dr. Ingalls is dedicated to building collaborative research networks for the study of Christian congregational music, and religious music more broadly, in contemporary societies. She co-founded the “Christian Congregational Music: Local and Global Perspectives” conference, a biennial international gathering which meets in Cuddesdon, Oxford, UK (congregationalmusic.org). She is senior series editor for the Congregational Music Studies book series with Routledge Press. She also served as co-founder and first president of the Religion, Music, and Sound Section of the Society for Ethnomusicology. 

In addition to her classical training as a pianist and choral singer, she has also enjoyed stints as a cover band keyboardist, a Javanese gamelan percussion player, a gospel choir alto/tenor, and a singer of traditional polyphony from the Republic of Georgia. Dr. Ingalls resides in North Waco with her husband, daughters, and cats, and serves in the music ministry of Holy Spirit Episcopal Church.

Selected Publications

Books

2021. Mall Andrew, Jeffers Engelhardt, and Monique M. Ingalls, eds. Studying Congregational Music: Key Issues, Methods, and Theoretical Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429492020

2019. Cook, Nicolas, Monique M. Ingalls, and David Trippett, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Music in Digital Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316676639

2018. Ingalls, Monique M. Singing the Congregation: How Contemporary Worship Music Forms Evangelical Community. New York: Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190499631.001.0001

2018. Ingalls, Monique M., Muriel Swijghuisen Reigersberg, and Zoe C. Sherinian, eds. Making Congregational Music Local in Christian Communities Worldwide. London and New York: Routledge Press.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315142432

2015. Ingalls, Monique M. and Amos Yong, eds. The Spirit of Praise: Music and Worship in Global Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

2013. Ingalls, Monique M. Carolyn Landau, and Tom Wagner, eds. Christian Congregational Music: Performance, Identity, and Experience. Farnham: Ashgate.

Digital Humanities & Public Scholarship

2022. Abioye, M., V. Adeyinka, M. Amuro, A. Ayanyinka, T. Chesirri, G. Okoronkwo, M. Ingalls, B. McGough, S. Baker, and S. Tandei. Nigerian Christian Songs: A Digital Interactive Songbook. Public digital humanities research website. Baylor WordPress: https://sites.baylor.edu/nigerianchristiansongs/

Recent Articles and Chapters

2022. Ingalls, Monique M. “Of Animatronic Praise Bands and Worship Leading Chickens: The Serious Business of Evangelical Christian Worship Parody Videos.” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 34(3), 81-98. https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.2021-0023

2022. Baker, Shannan and Monique M. Ingalls. “The Sound of Revival: Musical Rhetoric in the Toronto Blessing and Bethel Church.” The Journal of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity 42(1): 17-32. https://doi.org/10.1080/27691616.2022.2042043  

2021. Mall, Andrew, Jeffers Engelhardt, and Monique M. Ingalls. “Interdisciplinarity and Epistemic Diversity in Congregational Music Studies.” Studying Congregational Music: Key Issues, Methods, and Theoretical Perspectives, ed. by Mall et al, pp. 1-14. London and New York: Routledge Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429492020 

2020. Ingalls, Monique M. Guest Editor for THE HYMN: A Journal of Congregational Song 71(3): Summer 2020. 

2020. Ingalls, Monique M. “Welcoming the Scholarly Stranger: New Directions, Challenges, and Possibilities in Research on Congregational Song.” THE HYMN: A Journal of Congregational Song 71(3).

2020. Ingalls, Monique M. 2020. “Ritual Musicking in the 21st Century: Conformant or Convivial?.” In Naxos Musicology International, www.naxosmusiclibrary.com  

2019. Ingalls, Monique M. “Digital Devotion: Musical Multimedia in Online Ritual and Religious Practice.” In The Cambridge Companion to Music and Digital Culture, ed. by Nicholas Cook, Monique M. Ingalls, and David Trippett, pp. 150-167. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316676639.013  

2018. Ingalls, Monique M., Muriel Swijghuisen Reigersberg, and Zoe C. Sherinian. “Music as Local and Global Positioning: How Congregational Music-Making Produces the Local in Christian Communities Worldwide.” In Making Congregational Music Local in Christian Communities Worldwide, edited by Monique M. Ingalls, Muriel Swijghuisen Reigersberg, and Zoe C. Sherinian, pp. 1-31. London and New York: Routledge Press.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315142432-1  

2017. Ingalls, Monique M. 2017. “Style Matters: Contemporary Worship Music and the Meaning of Popular Musical Borrowings.” Liturgy: A Journal of the Liturgical Conference 32:1, 7-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/0458063X.2016.1229435

Works in Progress

McKenzie, Dulcie Dixon, Pauline Muir, and Monique M. Ingalls, eds. Black British Gospel Music: From the Windrush Generation to Black Lives Matter. Under contract with Routledge Press (London and New York). Anticipated 2023.

O'Connor, Michael and Monique M. Ingalls, eds. Oxford Handbook of Music and Christian Theology, Vol. 5, “Contexts,”. Under contract with Oxford University Press (Oxford and New York). Anticipated 2024.

Ingalls, Monique M. British Gospel Choirs: Representing Race and Resounding Religion in Twenty-first Century Britain. Monograph proposal submitted to publisher Fall 2023. 

Ingalls, Monique M., A. Ayanyinka, and E. Chesirri. “Reconstructing Hymn Canons through International Partnership: The Nigerian Christian Songs Project as Cultural Archive, Pedagogical Tool, and Decolonial Resource.” In Hymns and Constructions of Race: Agency, Mobility, Coloniality, ed. by Erin Johnson-Williams and Philip Burnett. Under contract with Routledge Press.

Recent Awards, Grants, and Fellowships

2025  Amman Endowed Chair in Church Music and Worship, Baylor University
2023  Next Generation Visiting Research Fellowship, University of Bristol, UK
2023  Visiting Research Fellowship, University of Haifa, Israel
2023  Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society
2022  Visiting Research Fellowship, Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham, UK
2022     Individual Research Grant, The American Academy of Religion 2020     Baylor Fellows Program Award for Excellence in Teaching
2019     National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Stipend 
2019     Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Teacher-Scholar Grant  
2019     Outstanding Faculty Award for Tenure-Track Scholarship, Baylor University  

Ph.D. students 

Dr. Nathan Myrick, Associate Professor of Church Music, Director of Undergraduate Studies in Music, Mercer University
Dissertation: “The Relational Ethics of Church Music” (2018)

Dr. Marcell Steuernagel, Associate Professor and Director of the Sacred Music Program, Southern Methodist University 
Dissertation: “Church Music Through the Lens of Performance: The Embodied Ritual of Sacred Play” (2018)

Dr. Maria Monteiro, Assistant Teaching Professor in Church Music, Baylor University
Dissertation: “Perceiving Parallax: Human Agency in the Changing Nature, History, and Influence of the Brazilian Baptist Hymnal Cantor Cristão” (2021)

Dr. Jacob Sensenig, Minister of Music & Worship Arts, Trinity Baptist Church San Antonio, TX
Dissertation: “Passin' the Faith Along: A Sonic History of the Gaither Vocal Band” (2021)

Dr. Shannan Baker, Postdoctoral Fellow in Church Music and Digital Humanities, Baylor University
Dissertation: “The Mystery, Music, and Markets of Contemporary Worship Songs: An Interdisciplinary Study of CCLI Top Songs from 2010-2020” (2022) Awarded Baylor Humanities Dissertation of the Year 

Dr. Joseph D. Noëlliste, Ph.D. in Church Music, Baylor University
Dissertation: “‘The Choir Is Dead, Long Live the Choir’: Contemporary Worship Music and the Transformation of the Church Choir” (2022)

Dr. Michael Huerter, Pastor of Worship & Engagement, Holmeswood Church, Kansas City
“A Practical Theology of Online and Hybrid Worship” (2023)

Dr. Samuel Tandei, Pastor of Worship and Youth Ministries, International Evangelical Church of Los Angeles, Rosemead, CA “Western Sacred Music as a Mode of Interreligious Engagement in a Muslim-Majority Context: A Case Study of Indonesian University Choirs” (awarded pass with distinction, 2023)

Dr. Adekunle Oyeniyi, Minister of Music at Ikoyi Baptist Church, Lagos, Nigeria Dissertation: “The Wazobia Gospel Genre: Conceptualizing a Multilingual Approach to Congregational Singing in Nigeria” (2024)

Dr. Eric Amouzou, Assistant Director of Research in Music and Arts, Mercer University, Macon, GA
Dissertation: “Reverse Mission or Localization?: A Case Study of Congregational Singing in Three African-Pioneered Churches in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas” (2024)

Dr. Senchumbeni Kikon, Ph.D. in Church Music, Baylor University 2026 
Dissertation: “The Sound of Naga Hills: Western Hymns and Indigenous Musical Expression in Naga Christian Worship”

Courses taught at Baylor

Academic Studies Colloquium
Gospel Music in Global Perspective
Congregational Song in Global Perspective
Introduction to Research Methods in Church Music
Research in Congregational Song
Research in Christian Worship
Research in Music Ministry
Professional Development and Teaching Practicum
Song of the Church
Instruments in the Church