Cole Swanson is a musicologist who studies film music and sound. His dissertation, “Material Ends: Hauntology, Anachrony, and Traces of the Analog in Digital Cinema," examines recent films that use the apparent contradiction between digital and analog sound for expressive and criticial purposes. His current research explores the oft obscured roles played by African American composers in Hollywood. He has presented his work at conferences hosted by the American Musicological Society and Music and the Moving Image. 

Before joining the St. Olaf faculty, he taught at Duke University and The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He received his PhD in Musicology from Duke University in 2023, his MA in Musicology from Tufts University in 2017, and his BA in Music from St. Olaf in 2015.

He lives in Durham, North Carolina with his wife and their cat. When not teaching, he can be found leading opera and musical rehearsals with a variety of NC theatre companies. He is an avid reader of spy novels, a lover of hiking, and a compulsive buyer of vinyl records.