Carol Muller is a Professor of Music (ethnomusicology), who has published widely on South African music, both at home and in exile. Her intellectual interests include the relationship between music, gender and religious studies, migration and diaspora studies, and critical ethnography. Musical Echoes: South African Women Thinking in Jazz (Duke Fall 2011) with Sathima Bea Benjamin; Shembe Hymns (Univ. of KwaZulu Natal 2010); Focus: South African Music (Routledge 2008); Rituals of Fertility and the Sacrifice of Desire: Nazarite Women’s Performance in South Africa (Chicago 1999) are some of the books she has authored and edited. Muller has published on South African jazz, religious performance, traditional and popular musics in a variety of journals that represent her interdisciplinary interests. Since coming to Penn, her graduate students have conducted research and are teaching in several countries, including the United States.
Muller has also pioneered two forms of pedagogy—in Civic Engagement (partnering with the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, see www.sas.upenn.edu/music/westphillymusic) and online learning. Her Music 50, Introduction to World Music and Cultures class is the largest live class in the Music department, and the most popular online class taught in LPS. She is Director of the Penn in Grahamstown and the Interdisciplinary Music Minor in Jazz and Popular Music Studies. This year (2011) Muller will lead a combined online and live summer abroad program in South Africa at one of the world’s largest arts festivals. Muller is also a seasoned gumboot dancer.
More information about current projects can be found:
http://penningrahamstown.tumblr.com/
/westphillymusic/ (site in progress)