EDUCATION
Freie Universität Berlin, Dr. habil. (Anthropology), 1994
University of Cologne, Dr. habil. (Ethnomusicology), 1991
University of Cologne, Ph. D. (Ethnomusicology), 1978
Freie Universität Berlin, M.A., 1974
EMPLOYMENT
Endowed Chair of Music History, University of Texas at Austin, 1997-
Heisenberg Fellow, Department of Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin, 1991-1996
Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Music, University of Chicago, 1990-1991
Assistant Researcher, Ethnographic Museum, Berlin, 1987-1989
Senior Research Officer, African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1986-87
Visiting Professor, Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand, 1986-87
Assistant Professor in Ethnomusicology, University of Natal, Durban, South Africa, 1981-1985
HONORS & AWARDS
Fulbright Scholar Award, 2019
Mercator Award, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 2011
Alan P. Merriam Prize, Society for Ethnomusicology, 2000
Hamilton Book Award, University of Texas, Co-op Society, 2000
Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award, Arts Council of the African Studies Association, 1998
Honorable Mention, Chicago Folkore Prize
Grammy nomination of album “Mbube Roots” for “Best Traditional Folk Recording 1987”
FELLOWSHIPS
Faculty Research Assignment, University of Texas at Austin, 2010
Senior Fellow, International Center for Cultural Studies, University of Vienna (declined), 2009
Visiting Professor (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst – DAAD), 2007
Dean’s Fellow, University of Texas at Austin, 2003
Sawyer Fellowship, Advanced Study Center, University of Michigan, 1996
Heisenberg Fellowship (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) (equivalent to McArthur Foundation “Genius” Award), 1991-1996
Research Fellowship (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), 1989
Research Fellowship, Human Sciences Research Council, 1986
Fellowship, Staff Research Development Fund, University of Natal, 1982
Research Fellowship (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), 1979
Fellowship for Doctoral Research, Federal Republic of Germany, 1975-1976
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
Music and Copyright Law in South Africa, 2009-2021
Indonesia (Music and Sufism in West Sumatra), 2001-2003
Europe (The History of Modern Aurality), 2000-2009
Cameroon (Popular Music, Media and the Public Sphere), 1995-1996
Ecuador (Música indigena and Politics in Riobamba), 1989
Ghana (Ethnicity and Labor Migration in the Ghanaian Gold Mining Industry), 1988
South Africa (Music and Popular Culture), 1981-1986
Lesotho (Music of the Basotho), 1982
Niger (Music and Spirit Possession in Maradi; Professional Musicians in Maradi), 1979
Cameroon (Professional Praise Singing and Power; Mbooku), 1975-1976
Morocco (Berber Music in the High Atlas), 1972
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Fulbright Scholar, University of Cape Town, 2019
Mercator Professor, Humboldt University Berlin, 2011-12
Visiting Professor, Leuphana University Lüneburg Germany, 2007
Endowed Chair of Music History, University of Texas at Austin, 1997-
Visiting Professor, Department of Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin, 1994-1996
Visiting Professor, Department of Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin, 1993
Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Music, University of Chicago, 1990-1991
Visiting Professor, Department of Sociology, Freie Universität Berlin, 1988-1989
Visiting Lecturer, Department of African Studies, University of Frankfurt, 1988
Visiting Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin, 1987-1988
Visiting Professor, Department of Social Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1986-1987
Assistant Professor in Ethnomusicology, University of Natal, Durban, 1981-1985
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Language Training in Bahasa Indonesia, Java, Indonesia 2001-2002
Upper division course “Advanced Topics in Copyright,” UT Law School, 2015
INVITED LECTURES
Africa Open Institute, University of Stellenbosch, 2019
Department of Music, Rhodes University, 2019
Department of Anthropology, Rhodes University, 2019
Humanities Center, University of the Western Cape, 2019
Department of Music, University of Pretoria, 2019
Department of Film & Media, University of Cape Town, 2019
Alexander von Humboldt Institut für Internet und Gesellschaft, Berlin, 2018
Faculty of Music, University of Oxford, 2013 and 2014
School of Architecture, Yale University, 2012
International Cultural Institute ICI, Berlin, 2012
Department of Music, University of Stellenbosch, 2012
Center for African Studies, University of Cape Town, 2012
Center for Area Studies, University of Leipzig, 2012
Department of Music, Humboldt University Berlin, 2010
Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Amsterdam, 2010
Freie Universität Berlin, Blankensee Colloquium, 2010
Department of Music, University of Göttingen, 2010
Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, 2010
CRASSH, University of Cambridge, 2010
Department of Music, University of Cambridge, 2010
Department of Music, Columbia University, 2010
UCLA, Art | Sci Center + Lab and the University of California Digital Arts Research Network, 2009
Department of Music, University of California Berkeley, 2009
Department of Performance Studies, Texas A & M University, 2009
Center for World Performance Studies, University of Michigan, 2008
Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Indiana University, 2007
Musikhochschule Hamburg, Germany, 2007
Fundación Alberto Jiménez-Arellano Alonso, University of Valladolid, Spain, 2007
Dactyl Foundation, New York, 2006
Department of Music, University of Pennsylvania, 2006
College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota, 2006
Department of Music, Columbia University
Department of Performance Studies, New York University
C.N.R.S. Paris
Department of Music, Cork University College, Cork
Department of Social Anthropology, Queen's University Belfast
Program in African Studies, Northwestern University
Program in African Studies, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Department of Music, Wesleyan University
Center for Humanities, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Department of Music, University of California-Santa Barbara
Department of Ethnomusicology, University of California-Los Angeles
Department of Music, University of California-Berkeley
Department of Music, University of Vienna, Austria
Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago
Department of Music, University of Minnesota
Institut für Kulturgeschichte, Universität Stuttgart
Musikhochschule Stuttgart
Leo Frobenius-Institut der Universität Frankfurt
African Studies Centre, University of Cape Town
Forschungszentrum für populäre Musik, Humboldt Universität Berlin
Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin
African Studies Program, University of Washington
Institut für Ethnologie, Universität Mainz
International Development Studies, Roskilde University
Swedish Academy of Sciences
Department of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm
UNESCO, Niamey, Niger
University of Ottawa
Center for African and African American Studies, University of Michigan
Department of African and African American Studies, Washington University, St.Louis
Department of Communication Studies, Fordham University
EDITORIAL WORK
Editor, Sound Studies. An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2014-
Editorial Board, African Music, 1985-
Editorial Board, British Forum for Ethnomusicology, 2004-2017
Editorial Board, South African Journal of Musicology, 2008-
Editorial Board, Ethnomusicology, 2008-2009
CONSULTANCIES
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, 2007-2008
UNESCO
CONFERENCE, WORKSHOP, LECTURE SERIES ORGANIZATION
“Music, Property & Law,“ University of Texas at Austin, December 2, 2015
“Thinking Hearing – Toward an Auditory Turn in the Humanities.” University of Texas at Austin, October 2-4, 2009
International Symposium „Hearing Culture – New Directions in th.e Anthropology of Sound.“ Oaxaca, Mexico. Sponsor: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 2002
International Conference „Grounding Music - The Theory and Practice of Music in the Global Age.“ In collaboration with Peter Wicke (Humboldt Universität) Berlin,1996
International Conference „Symbols of Change - Transregional culture and local practice in Southern Africa.“ Berlin, Freie Universität, 1993
Third Symposium on Ethnomusicology, Durban, South Africa, 1982
Annual Distinguished Lecture Series Music/Culture/Critique (3-4 speakers per year)
Concert Issa Boulos and al-Sharq Ensemble (U.S.A./Palestine), 2007
Concert Yair Dalal (Israel), 2006
Performance Larry Reed, Wayang Bali (U.S.A.), 2005
Concert Talago Buni (Sumatra, Indonesia), 2002
Workshop with kora virtuoso Alhaji Papa Suso (Gambia), September 2000
LANGUAGE COMPETENCIES
English, French, German (Fluent speaking, reading and writing)
Bahasa Indonesia, Fulfulde, Hausa, Spanish (Advanced level speaking, reading, writing)
Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Zulu (Reading and basic speaking)
PUBLICATIONS
Monographs
in press Lion’s Share. Remaking South African Copyright. Durham: Duke University Press
2010 Reason and Resonance. A History of Modern Aurality. New York: Zone Books
1999 Music, Modernity and the Global Imagination. South Africa and the West. New York: Oxford University Press
1996 Nightsong. Performance, Power and Practice in South Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
1991 African Stars. Studies in Black South African Performance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
1989 (with Habou Magagi) Girkaa. Une cérémonie d'initiation au culte de possession boorii des Hausa de la région de Maradi (Niger). Berlin: D. Reimer
1986 Music and the Islamic Reform in the Early Sokoto Empire. Sources, Ideology, Effects. Stuttgart: Steiner
1980 Booku. Eine musikalisch-literarische Gattung der Fulbe des Diamaré (Nordkamerun) Berlin: D. Reimer
1979 Die Macht des Wortes. Preisgesang und Berufsmusiker bei den Fulbe des Diamaré (Nordkamerun). München: Renner
Edited volumes
2004 Hearing Cultures. Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity. New York: Berg
1993 (with Deborah Pacini-Hernandez) The Politics and Aesthetics of "World Music." The World of Music 2, 1993
1991 Populäre Musik in Afrika. Berlin: Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz
Articles
2020 “Shoot the Boer” Hate Speech, Law and the Expediency of Sound, Law /Text/ Culture 24: 274-301
2019 The Sonic Abject: Sound and Violence in the Legal Imagination, Grimshaw-Aagaard, Mark; Walther-Hansen, Mads; and Knakkergaard, Martin, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Imagination, Volume 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 333-44.
2018 The Acoustic Abject. Sound and the Legal Imagination, Steintrager, James A.; Chow, Rey, eds. Sound Objects. Durham: Duke University Press: 151-66.
2018 Auralität, Morat, Daniel; Ziemer, Hansjakob, eds. Handbuch Sound – Geschichte, Begriffe, Ansätze. Stuttgart: J.B.Metzler: 8-13.
2017 The Physiologist at the Opera - Claude Perrault’s “Du Bruit” (1680) and the Politics of Pleasure in the Ancien Régime, Ian Biddle and Kirsten Gibson (eds.), Cultural Histories of Noise, Sound and Listening in Europe, 1300–1918. New York: Routledge: 31-52.
2017 Unsound, Szeman, Imre; Blacker, Sarah; Sully, Justin, eds. A Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell: :357-70.
2017 String Theory. Denis Diderot’s Philosophy of Sound and Everything, Marcel Cobussen, Vincent Meelberg, Barry Truax (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art. New York: Routledge: 145-58.
2016 “Immediate bey sich“ – Utopien des Hörens um 1800, Pias, Claus and Stefan Rieger, eds., Vollstes Verständnis. Utopien der Kommunikation. Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes: 109-24.
2016 Lion's Share. Intellectual Property Rights and the South African Music Industry, Ute Röschenthaler, Mamadou Diawara: Copyright Africa. Canon Pyon: Sean Kingston Publishing: 86-104.
2015 Resonance, Novak, David and Matt Sakakeeny, eds. Keywords in Sound. Durham: Duke University Press: 175-82.
2014 “Acoustic Space” – Marshall McLuhan Defended Against Himself, The Senses & Society 11/1: 36-49.
2013 Popular Music in Africa, Parker, John and Richard Reid, eds., Oxford Handbook of African History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2013 L’anatomia, la cultura e la politica della soggettività, Studi Culturali 10/1: 13-24.
2012 Klang, Raum und Umwelt. Jakob von Uexkülls Musiktheorie des Lebens, Zeitschrift für Semiotik 34/1-2: 145-58.
2012 Refiguring the Early Modern Voice, qui parle? 22/1: 85-105.
2011 Descartes’s Resonant Subject, differences. A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 22/2-3: 10-30.
2010 Löwenanteil. „Der König der Löwen“ und geistiges Eigentum in einer neoliberalen Weltordnung, Dorothea Schulz, Jochen Seebode (eds.), Spiegel und Prisma: Ethnologie zwischen postkolonialer Kritik und Deutung der eigenen Gesellschaft. Festschrift für Ute Luig. Berlin: Argument Verlag: 295-310.
2004 What of the Ethnographic Ear? Anthropology, the Senses, and Sound, Hearing Cultures. Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity. New York: Berg: 1-20.
2004 Resisting sameness – A propos Kofi Agawu’s “Representing African Music,” Music Theory Spectrum 26/2: 291-305.
2004 Communities of Style: Musical Figures of Black Diasporic Identity, in: Thomas Turino and James Lea (eds.), Identity and the Arts in Diaspora Communities. Warren, Mich.: Harmonie Park Press: 82-91.
2001 Musik in reinerer Form: Ladysmith Black Mambazo und die Politik und Ästhetik der „World Music.“ Wicke, Peter, ed., Handbuch der Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts. Laaber: Laaber Verlag: 229-65.
2000 Communities of Style: Musical Figures of Black Diasporic Identity, Monson, Ingrid, ed., The African Diaspora. A Musical Perspective. New York: Garland: 83-102.
1999 “Spectatorial Lust:” The African Choir in England, 1891-1893, Lindfors, Bernth, ed., Africans on Stage. Studies in Ethnological Show Business. Bloomington: Indiana University Press: 107-34.
1998 How Beautiful is Small? Music, Globalization and the Aesthetics of the Local, Yearbook for Traditional Music 30:12-21.
1998 Wie schön ist klein? World Music, Globalisierung und die Ästhetik des Lokalen, Fritsch, Johannes, ed., Alternativen. Mainz: Schott (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Neue Musik und Musikerziehung): 9-23.
1998 Modern and Popular Music in Southern Africa, Middleton, John ed., The Encyclopedia of Africa south of the Sahara. New York: Charles Scribner‘s Sons, vol.3: 229-32.
1998 Musikkultur, Rösing, Helmut and Herbert Bruhn, eds., Musikwissenschaft. Ein Grundkurs. Reinbek: Rowohlt: 71-90.
1996 But Hope Does Not Kill: Black Popular Music in Durban, 1913-1939, Maylam, Paul and Iain Edwards, eds., The People's City. African Life in Twentieth-Century Durban. Durban: University of Natal Press: 67-101
1996 The Aesthetics of the Global Imagination. Reflections on „World Music“ in the 1990s, Public Culture 18/1: 467-87.
1995 Die Ideologie der Differenz: Zur Ästhetik der World Music, PopScriptum 3: 6-29.
1995 The Crowd, the Machine, and the Whore ‑ Some Motifs in South African Migrant Performance, Kaarsholm, Preben, ed., From Post‑Traditional to Post‑Modern? Interpreting the Meaning of Modernity in Third World Urban Societies. Roskilde: International Development Studies, Roskilde University (Occasional Paper No.14): 129‑51.
1994 The Early History of Isicathamiya. An Interview with Thembinkosi Pewa, Schmidhofer, August and Dietrich Schüller, eds., For Gerhard Kubik. Festschrift on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften: 193-218.
1994 Modern, neo-modern oder postmodern? Zu den Problemen und Möglichkeiten einer historischen Anthropologie Südafrikas, Historische Anthropologie 2/1:131-41.
1994 „Africa Civilized, Africa Uncivilized “- Local Culture, World System and South African Music, Journal of Southern African Studies 22/2: 165-79.
1993 The Politics and Aesthetics of Transnational Musics, The World of Music 2, 1993:3-15.
1992 The Past is Far and the Future is Far; Power and Performance among Zulu Migrant Workers, American Ethnologist 19/4: 45-66.
1992 L'inachèvement d'un achèvement connu: A propos de la ritualisation en Afrique du Sud, Cahiers de musiques traditionnelles 5: 5-18.
1991 Tradition, Popular Culture and Social Transformation, Baumann, Max-Peter, ed., Music in the Dialogue of Cultures. Traditional Music and Cultural Policy. Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel Verlag: 121-35.
1990 Migration and Performance: Zulu Migrant Workers' Isicathamiya Performance in South Africa, 1890-1950, Ethnomusicology 34/2: 199-220.
1989 Hausa und Fulbe Musik, Kubik, Gerhard, ed., Westafrika. Musikgeschichte in Bildern. Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik: 90-95.
1989 “Horses in the Race Course:” The Domestication of Ingoma Dancing in South Africa, 1929-1939, Popular Music 8/3: 259-73.
1989 A Conversation with Joseph Shabalala of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Aspects of African Performers' Lifestories, The World of Music 31/1:31-58.
1989 (with Carola Lentz) A Working Class in Formation? Economic Crisis and Strategies of Survival among Dagara Mine Workers in Ghana, Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 113/XXIX-
1988 A Feeling of Prejudice - Orpheus McAdoo and the Virginia Jubilee Singers in South Africa, 1890-1898, Journal of Southern African Studies 14/3: 331-50.
1987 Modèle, variation et exécution: Chants de louanges Peuls (Cameroun), .Lortat-Jacob, Bernard, ed., L'improvisation dans les musiques de tradition orale. Paris: 85-93.
1986 Colonial Conquest and Popular Response in Northern Cameroun (1881-1907): How Literature Becomes Oral Literature, R.Whitaker, E.Sienaert, eds., Oral Tradition and Literacy. Durban: 162-78.
1986 (with Souleymane Adama) Konu Raabe: A Fulbe booku Song on Rabih b.Fadlallah, Africana Marburgensia, 19/2: 79-94.
1985 Black Political Song in South Africa - Some Research Perspectives, Popular Music Perspectives 2: 187-209.
1985 Model, Variation and Performance. Fulani Praise-song in North Cameroun, Yearbook for Traditional Music, 17: 88-112.
1983 Marginal Men, Strangers, and Wayfarers: Professional Musicians and Change among the Fulani of Diamaré (North Cameroun), Ethnomusicology 27/2: 187-225.
1983 Notes on Musical Instruments among the Fulani of Diamaré, African Music 6/3: 16-41.
1983 Apartheid, African Nationalism and Culture: The Case of Traditional African Music in Black Education in South Africa, Perspectives in Education 7/3: 131-54.
1982 Daacol - Preisgesänge der Fulbe des Diamaré - vorgetragen von 'Alhaji Buuba Gerdele, Anthropos 77: 775-830.
1982 Trance and Music in the Hausa Boorii Spirit Possession Cult in Niger, Ethnomusicology 26/1: 49-58.
1981 Data on the Sociology of Hausa Musicians in the Valley of Maradi (Niger), Paideuma 27: 63-110.
1973 Some Sources on Music in Western Sudan from 1300-1700, African Music 5/3: 34-39.
Miscellanea
2005 Durban, Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, vol.VI. London-New York: Continuum:
2005 Hybridity and Globalization, Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, vol.I. London-New York: Continuum: 241-46.
2003 Music, Anthropological Aspects, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Amsterdam-New York: Elsevier: 149-54.
2001 Niger, The New Grove’s Dictionary, 2nd and rev. edition. London
1998 Hausa Dance, International Encyclopedia of Dance. New York: Oxford University Press, vol.3: 347-48.
1989 In Memoriam John Blacking, The World of Music 31/3
1988 Audio Report. Recordings of Traditional Music in South Africa, Yearbook for Traditional Music, 20:247-51.
Audio
1987 Mbube Roots. Zulu Choral Music from South Africa, 1930s-1960s. Cambridge, MA: Rounder Records 5025.
1986 Zulu Songs from South Africa. New York: Lyrichord LLST 7401.
1986 Iscathamiya. Zulu Worker Choirs in South Africa. London: Heritage HT 313.
1979 Cameroon. The Fulani of the North. New York: Lyrichord LLST 7334.