Job: Postdoc in Improvised Music and Institutional Whiteness (0.8 FTE), Utrecht
Job description
We are offering a position for a postdoctoral researcher to form part of the team for the project IMPRODECO: Improvised Music and Decolonisation.
Deadline: May 5 2023
This project is funded by a Starting Grant from the European Research Council, and will be led by Dr. Floris Schuiling. You will be based at Utrecht University, at the department of Media and Culture Studies and the Institute for Cultural Inquiry-
The project team consists of the PI, two PhDs, a Postdoc, and a project assistant. Applications for these positions can be submitted until 5 May 2023.
The project team studies the emergence of free improvisation in Europe in the context of the historical process of decolonisation, with a particular focus on the Netherlands. European improvisers distinguished their so-called ‘non-idiomatic’ free improvisation from jazz and other improvisatory musical practices. At the same time, post-war decolonisation processes meant that more and more musicians from former colonies were making their livelihoods in Europe, with sometimes very different perspectives on the relation between jazz, improvisation, and concepts of musical and political freedom. We investigate whether and to what extent dominant notions of improvisatory freedom have actually excluded the participation of musicians of colour.