Research
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is a tradition of
scholarship concerned with the social and cultural study of music, and rooted
in ethnography, which is to say the study of musical practice in cultural
context based on participant-observation fieldwork. Often, though not exclusively,
ethnomusicologists concern themselves with non-western musical cultures, in
order to think about cross-cultural difference in music-making. It connects, as
a discipline, with earlier (and continuing) traditions of comparative
musicology, the anthropology of music, the psychology of music, and popular
music studies. Today, ethnomusicologists work on issues such as: modelling
musical interaction in jazz and rock; studying the impact of ‘world music';
considering the politics of music-making in migrant communities in the UK;
enabling access and creative musical engagement with ethnographic archives in
South Africa; analyzing Bollywood film music. And, of course, many other
things.
People
Ethnomusicology has been taught in Oxford in Anthropology and in the Pitt-Rivers, as well as the Faculty of Music and the Bate Collection, by, amongst others, Gerhard Baumann, Jeremy Montague and Helene La Rue. Currently, ethnomusicology is taught at Oxford in the Faculty of Music, mainly by Martin Stokes, whose research covers a broad range of theoretical issues, and ongoing study of Turkish, Egyptian and post-Ottoman music. His current projects include a forthcoming book based on Turkish research (provisionally entitled The Republic of Love: Transformations of Intimacy in Turkish Popular Music Culture), an ongoing study of Abd al-Halim Hafiz (with Joel Gordon, at the University of Arkansas, Fayetville), a volume on theory in ethnomusicology (with Martin Clayton, at the Open University) attached to an Oxford University Press series he co-edits, and a volume on theorizing sentimentalism for the same series. He is also series co-editor, with Phil Bohlman, of Scarecrow's Europea: Ethnomusicologies and Modernities series. Over the last twenty years, he has supervised students working on a wide variety of projects based in East Asia, North America and Europe as well as the Middle East.
Beginning in 2009 the Faculty of Music has introduced the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Ethnomusicology. Anna Stirr (Ph.D. 2009, Columbia University) is the current fellow for 2009-2011. Her Ph.D. thesis, "Exchanges of Song: Migration, Gender, and Nation in Nepali Dohori Performance," focused on music, gender, caste/ethnicity, and the nation-state in Nepal, looking at the transformation of a rural form of dialogic singing in the context of political upheaval and increasing migration. Her postdoctoral projects include an extension of this research to the Nepali diaspora communities in the UK and Bahrain, and a study of Nepali protest music since the 1970s, including a translation of Manjul Nepal's memoir of musical Communist consciousness-raising in the early 1970s, "The Footsteps of Memory" ("Samjhanaka Pailaharu"), and an examination of music in the Maoist People's War. Anna's work has appeared in Ethnomusicology, World Literature Today, and several edited volumes.
Resources
Ethnomusicology research students at
Oxford can take advantage of a wide range of relevant expertise and resources
(many of unique historical value, including important collections of recordings
and instruments) in Anthropology, the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Bate
Collection in the Faculty of Music. Students working on specific regions also
have access to area studies centres and libraries, the former usually world-ranking
research environments in their own right (for instance, the African Studies
Centre, The Centre for Middle East Studies, the Nissan Institute). The Faculty also offers concerts and
workshops by performers of various musical traditions which may be of interest
to ethnomusicology students.
Ethnomusicology Seminar
The Ethnomusicology Seminar usually
meets twice termly in the St. John's Research Center, 45 St. Giles, usually on
Thursdays at 5.00-6.30 pm (see music faculty main web-page for details). These
allow discussion of the most recent research in the field, and gather the
growing community of ethnomusicologists in Oxford. For a list of recent and
forthcoming talks, please see the Faculty brochure for the current term,
available on the Events webpage. Visiting ethnomusicologists also speak
regularly at the Faculty's Graduate Colloquium on Tuesday evenings. Recent ethnomusicology-related speakers
at the Graduate Colloquium have included Lucy Duran, John Baily, Martin Stokes,
and Anna Stirr.
Ethnomusicology seminars at Oxford over the past two years have included:
2008-2009
Thursday 13 November 2008
Professor
Martin Clayton, Open University
Music, Interaction and Entrainment
Thursday 16 October 2008
Dr. Laudan Nooshin (City University, London)
"We Have Become Universal":
Rock Music and Internationalist Discourses in Contemporary Iran
Thursday 29 January 2009
Dr Katherine Brown (King's College, London)
The Courtesan Tale: Female musicians, reality and rhetoric in
Mughal India
Thursday 19 February 2009
Dr Goffredo Plastino (Newcastle University)
Ghosts: Alan Lomax's field recordings in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Decameron
Thursday 5 March 2009
Issa Boulos (Ramallah and Chicago)
Palestinian Composer Issa Boulos in Conversation with Martin Stokes
Thursday 30 April 2009
Prof. Georgina Born (Cambridge)
Music, Public, and Private Spheres
2009-2010
Thursday 22 October 2009
Prof. Allan Marett (University of Sydney)
Entering the ceremonial space: new perspectives on Aboriginal song from the position of performer.
Thursday 5 November 2009
Prof. Tom Solomon (University of Bergen)
The Oriental Body on the European Stage: Producing Turkish Cultural Identity on the Margins of Europe
Thursday 21 January 2010
Prof. Hans Weisethaunet (University of Oslo)
The Performance of Everyday Life: The Gaine of Nepal
Thursday 11 February 2010
Prof. Timothy Cooley (University of Santa Barbara)
Musicking about Surf, Surfing about Music
Tuesday 15 June 2010
Prof. Robin D. G. Kelley (University of Southern California)
"Jazz Sahara": Ahmed Abdul-Malik's Islamic Experimentalism
(In conjunction with Graduate Colloquium)