Burgess winner driven by love of music

Not your typical undergraduate

Winning the IU Libraries Burgess Award was validating for Wesley Kopis. Having graduated from high school in 2018, he didn’t get into IU Bloomington, his target school. Instead, he enrolled in IUPUI (IUI). “That whole chunk of time with me being at IUPUI, I was really checked out,” he remembers.  

Involved in independent drum corps and drumline, Kopis was a performer, loving the music. “I didn't quite understand why I was in college per se,” he explains. He had the same major – social studies education – but school was not his passion at that point. Then, COVID hit. “I couldn't perform anymore. There's an age limit to the drumline too, so by the time I was 21, that was the end of that.” 

Kopis began questioning his life. “I was doubting why I was doing all this and going to college and rethinking stuff.” A teacher from his former drumline asked Wesley if he’d like to teach and see what it was like in a high school classroom. “That changed everything for me,” Kopis says. “I really fell in love with education and loved seeing the light bulbs go off for the students.” Seeing students understand a concept turned Kopis’ focus to his own schooling.

“My girlfriend says I have a flamethrower of passion where, if there's something that grabs me, I put everything into it.” You can see this in Kopis’s eyes and smile. He is all in. “I'm very passionate about working alongside students to figure out answers to problems or to get them to learn and develop, not just for the skills important for the class, but for just being an adult – growing up and being a person, being a human being.” 

When his focus turned to education, he became determined to finish his degree at IU Bloomington. He was ready. 

Research for the love of music

Kopis cites the academic culture of IU Bloomington as having improved his confidence. “That's a testament to the faculty,” he says. “The education faculty, IU Libraries, and the history department– every single person I've met with or has taught me has been adamant about getting me where I want to be. I try to reciprocate that by participating and doing my best in class.”

Jason McGraw, Associate Professor of History, nominated Kopis’s work, “Soul in the Machine: Detroit Techno’s Response to the Urban Crisis.” Kopis claims he could not have done it without McGraw. In his nomination letter, Dr. McGraw noted that Kopis continued to work on his research after the class was over in the fall of 2024. McGraw was impressed with Kopis’s love of the topic and research. “It was never about the grade,” McGraw wrote. “It was about a passion for learning and the pursuit of knowledge.”

Talking about his research, Kopis’s passion is evident. He explains, “Electronic Dance Music (EDM) as an ‘umbrella genre’ is big and amorphous. As an electronic musician trying to trace and find inspiration, it's hard to parse these specific histories. In doing so for this project, I wanted to understand the socio-economic, political, and cultural background of techno specifically to understand how electronic musicians use their setting or context to contribute to EDM more broadly. This is something that Detroiters did and learning that ‘blueprint’ is important as a developing electronic artist myself.”

Kopis’s research is a fascinating tale of how Detroit, suffering from the abandonment of Motown in 1972, produced great Techno musicians due to the remaining musical infrastructure and production of cheaper technology. Kopis made a connection between post-Berlin wall Germany and Detroit.  Imaging these two completely different cities having a similar experience and reaction to de-industrialism captured Kopis’s interest, though he focused only on Detroit for his paper. Both cities would have been too large of a topic. He paints a picture: “During the Reunification, where East and West Berliners all came together, they would have these parties in abandoned factories. That parallels Detroit as well because Detroit was going through de-industrialization. They also had abandoned factory rigs.

“The musicians are manipulating machines to create soul music. That is how they saw it. That’s why my title is called ‘Soul of the Machine.’” Detroit’s economy, once powered by manufacturing’s machinery and Motown, was the same “medium in which Techno’s pioneers choose to express themselves.” Instead of an assembly-line approach to producing music, Techno reverses the idea. “Musicians are interacting with machines themselves, infusing soul to create music that is introspective. So, in sum, Soul in the Machine is referencing this idea of directly interfacing with Detroit's history through infusing soul with automation and machines (through drum machines and synthesizers), using that medium to create music that is great to dance to, but also helps paint an abstract and idealized ‘utopian’ urban setting that transcends Detroit's reality.”

Research tips

Like many Burgess winners before him, Kopis encourages students to talk to their professor. He purposely took risks by talking to people when it made him uneasy. One of those instances led him to a remarkable resource. “When I was doing my research, I stumbled across a grad student, who – about a decade ago – created a database of primary sources from Detroit specifically for the techno movement.” It led him into an archive for the first time: the Archives of African American Music and Culture (AAAMC) on the third floor, West Tower, of the Wells Library.

“I asked so many questions because I have never gone to a physical archive before,” Kopis says. “It was uncomfortable being in a place where you have to turn the pages carefully in a specific way, but I was just so excited to be there.”

Kopis feels he’s fortunate to have a childlike sense of curiosity, but he credits IU faculty for matching his curiosity with engagement. “People are excited to share what they have, especially at this school, with students. Honestly, this whole process of me getting the Sam Burgess award has taught me that.”

This coming spring, Kopis is going to Germany through IU’s Study Abroad program. As a student working to put himself through college, Kopis’s financial need has been high, but he also received a scholarship through the overseas program. He has worked hard to get where he currently is and still can’t believe this is his life. “I'm just reaping the benefits of being in an environment where I can explore what I love,” he says. “The Sam Burgess Award came from me needing financial support, but, also, it was affirming in the sense that I am finally getting signs, big signs, that I'm on the right path and that I'm really making a lot of great progress with where I'm at right now as a student.”

You can find Wesley Kopis's work and other Burgess winners’ research on IU Scholar Works. Another great source for undergraduate research is the Indiana University Journal of Undergraduate Research.