Cultural Heritage Policy Book

A few days ago I was able to complete and send the detailed plans for a new book that is being developed by an excellent group of contributing authors. They seem to be an ideal team for our topic, and I am thankful for their important contributions to an international-comparative volume that is likely to change how music is understood in the context of international relations.

It seemed worthwhile to introduce the team here, as they proceed with further development of their chapters.

About the Contributing Authors:

UPDATE (July, 2021): Five additional contributing authors have been added to this project: Koji Matsunobu, Ambigay Yudkoff, Lauren Braithwaite, Jan Magne Steinhovden and Chaden Yafi. The full manuscript of this contracted book has been submitted and is now under editorial review. 

Koji Matsunobu is Associate Head of the Department of Cultural and Creative Arts at the Education University of Hong Kong. An accomplished player of the Japanese shakuhachi flute, he holds PhD degrees from both Tokyo Gakugei University and University of Illinois, and is widely published on such topics as music education, spirituality, mindfulness, Indigenous knowledge, and creativity. 

Ambigay Yudkoff holds a PhD in Musicology from the University of South Africa. She has served as guest conductor of the Sai Movement’s youth choir of Isipingo in South Africa and the Battenkill Chorale of Vermont in the United States, each boasting notable performances for Nelson Mandela. Her monograph on Sharon Katz is volume 1 of the Deep Soundings series: Activism through Music during the Apartheid Era and Beyond: When Voices Meet. 

Lauren Braithwaite is a PhD student in music at Oxford University who has lived and worked in Afghanistan across recent years, where she researches music education in the ‘post-Taliban’ era. Her study focuses on Zohra, Afghanistan’s first all-female orchestra. 

Jan Magne Steinhovden is a Lecturer at NLA University College and Ph.D. Candidate with the University of Bergen, Norway. He spent much of his childhood in Ethiopia and holds a Master of world music studies from the University of Sheffield. His dissertation concerns music and identity among Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees in Norway. 

Chaden Yafi is a professionally-trained pianist and music educator with a doctorate in music from Boston University. Born in Syria, she has published on musical aesthetics and held a full-time position as a recitalist with the National Opera House in Damascus before moving to the USA. She now teaches many piano students in the Houston area. 

Marja Heimonen, DMus, Docent in Music Education, is a University Lecturer at the University of the Arts Helsinki. She also has a master-level law degree from University of Helsinki. In addition to her doctoral dissertation on music education and law, she has published chapters in books and anthologies, and articles in several different scholarly journals. She is the Managing Editor of the Finnish Journal of Music Education.

Juqian Li, PhD, is a Professor of International Law with China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, where he has directed the Public International Law Research Institute. He is also Director of Norway’s Confucius Institute and has been a visiting professor in South Korea and Iceland. He has authored 15 books and 20 articles on international law and international economic law, including in Introduction of Space Law, WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism, International Law, and International Law Commentary.

Marianne Løkke Jakobsen is Director of International Affairs with the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen, where she also has served as founding Director of the Music Confucius Institute. She has led several projects that advance music collaborations between China and Europe.

Jonathan McCollum, PhD, is an Associate Professor with Washington College (USA) and founding Chair of the Historical Ethnomusicology special interest group of the Society for Ethnomusicology. He is known for his widely published contributions to the historiography of global music, and music traditions in Armenia and Japan.

Elnora Mamadjanova, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Music History and Criticism with the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan, Tashkent. She has coordinated several international musicology symposia affiliated with international music festivals in Uzbekistan. Her publications include the book Traditional Music of the Uzbeks (Extremum, 2016).

Nguyễn Thanh Thủy, PhD, is a leading Master performer of the Vietnamese traditional instrument dan tranh who recently completed doctoral studies at the Malmo Academy Music, Lund University, Sweden and is now a Swedish Research Council funded postdoctoral researcher.

Stefan Östersjö, PhD, a professional guitarist and widely-published pioneer of intercultural studies in the field of Artistic Research, is now a full Professor and coordinator of doctoral studies in music at Lulea University of Technology, Sweden.

Nasim Niknafs, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Music Education at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. Nasim’s research concerning social justice, activism, and politics of contemporary music education is widely published. Concluding a longitudinal research on the music education of rock musicians in Iran, Nasim has recently begun research on migratory and diasporic practices in music education. Nasim holds degrees from Northwestern University, New York University, Kingston University, London, and University of Art, Tehran.

Karan Choudhary holds a PhD from the National Law University Delhi, India and Université Paris Nanterre, France. Presently, he is a Judge in Delhi, India. He was a recipient of an Erasmus Scholarship from the European Union. His research interests include culture, law, indigenous rights and policy designs, with publications in Interactions between Culture and Law in India and Europe, and Language, Law and Community.

Abraha Weldu holds a PhD in History and Cultural Studies from Mekelle University, Ethiopia. His doctoral dissertation is an intellectual biography of one of the most prominent diplomats and cultural attachés of twentieth-century Ethiopia. For more than seven years, he has taught courses in history and heritage studies at Bule Hora University. He was a participant in the Bergen Summer Research School in Norway.

Rhoda Abiolu is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Durban University of Technology, and holds a PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her research interests are in Media and Cultural studies with emphasis on media and cultural representations, ethnomusicology, participatory culture, and political economy. She was a participant in Bergen Summer Research School.

We have exciting plans for this book, and I am eager to see how the final version turns out as we obtain and respond to recommendations from an external reviewer. 

Click HERE to see reviews of my first six books.