USF media professor dies in Berkeley fire

A University of San Francisco media studies professor died Tuesday after a fire broke out in his Berkeley apartment building, leaving colleagues and students mourning a man whose interests ranged from Led Zeppelin to Lady Gaga as he explored the aesthetics of popular music and culture.

Andrew Goodwin, 56, who blogged as the "Professor of Pop," was found in his third-floor apartment after the two-alarm fire at 2431 Oregon St. was reported about 1:40 a.m., authorities said. Goodwin died at a hospital.

Firefighters arrived to find flames shooting from the roof. Seven other residents of the building near Telegraph Avenue were evacuated and were not injured. The fire was mostly confined to the third floor, but the bottom floors suffered water and other damage, authorities said.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. The Alameda County coroner will conduct an autopsy to determine how Goodwin died.

England native Goodwin's eclectic interests shined through whether he was teaching class at USF or hanging out at cafes near the school or in Berkeley, colleagues and former students said.

University of San Francisco professor Andrew Goodwin, 56, died in a Berkeley apartment fire early Tuesday September 10, 2013. University of San Francisco professor Andrew Goodwin, 56, died in a Berkeley apartment fire early Tuesday September 10, 2013. Photo: Usf, Courtesy Photo: Usf, Courtesy Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close USF media professor dies in Berkeley fire 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

"Andrew was a brilliant colleague, a committed teacher and a founding member not just of our department but of the field of media and cultural studies generally," said Bernadette Barker-Plummer, chair of the media studies department at USF.

"He studied and loved popular music and took it completely seriously as a cultural form always, and he connected deeply through the study of music and culture with some of our best students over the years. We already miss him terribly."

Goodwin received his doctorate in cultural studies from the University of Birmingham in England. He was the author of the 1992 book "Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture."

He was deeply interested in Led Zeppelin and in a 2007 article for Slate wondered if the band, reuniting for a charity gig in London, would play "Stairway to Heaven," which he described as "the song that has done the most damage to the band" because it branded them as "spaced-out mystics."

In class, he spoke about topics as varied as MTV, Captain Beefheart - the stage name of musician Don Van Vliet - and the Oranj Symphonette, an experimental jazz-rock quintet from San Francisco known for playing Henry Mancini covers.

"I think of all the teachers I've had in my life, he probably has shaped the way that I view the world and how I interact with things around me," said 24-year-old Chris Carson of San Francisco, who took Goodwin's media theory and criticism class in 2010. "He had a way of conveying very complex, philosophical ideas in class in an easy-to-understand way."

J. Michael Robertson, an associate professor of media studies at the university, said Goodwin "may well have been brilliant. He talked very well about popular music, arguing effectively to old fogies, of which I was one, that it was not trivial and could - and should - be subject to rigorous aesthetic analysis."

Goodwin took pride in his English roots and was a die-hard fan of the Chelsea Football Club, Robertson said. He recalled how Goodwin met a girlfriend just by reading the London-based Independent newspaper at a Berkeley cafe.

One of the first things Goodwin told Robertson was that Americans had no ear for English accents and would automatically assume that Goodwin "must be related to the royal family."

A former tenant of the Berkeley apartment building, 26-year-old Elizabeth Carter of San Francisco, remembered how Goodwin offered to let her use his shower when hers was broken.

"He was one of the nicest people in the apartment building," Carter said. "He was really kind."