Rebecca Dirksen: Faculty: About: Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology: Indiana University Bloomington

Home
About
Faculty
Rebecca Dirksen

Rebecca Dirksen

Laura Boulton Professor

Associate Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology

Director of Graduate Studies

she/her/li

rdirksen@iu.edu
(812) 855-4124
800 E. 3rd St., 257
Office Hours
M-F
By Appointment Only

Education

Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 2012
M.A., University of Roehampton, London, 2006
B.M., Lawrence University and Conservatory of Music, 2003

Research interests

Haiti, Caribbean, Latin America
ecomusicology, diverse environmentalisms, sacred ecologies, environmental justice
carnival, protest, revolution, politically engaged music
creative responses to crisis, disaster, poverty, violence, trauma
development discourse, grassroots development
arts activism and international NGOs, aid, and humanitarianism
intangible cultural heritage and cultural policy
archives, archival silences, hidden archives and accidental archivists
Haitian classical/art music
film as ethnography
applied/engaged/activist ethnomusicology

Courses recently taught

Applied Ethnomusicology (grad seminar)
Ecomusicology (grad seminar)
Filmmaking as Ethnography (grad seminar)
Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology (grad seminar)
Music and Disaster
Music and Development
Caribbean Carnival
Caribbean Music, Sacred Ecologies, and the Environment
Making Films: Music and Folklore

Selected awards & distinctions

Honourable Mention for the International Council for Traditional Music Book Prize for After the Dance, the Drums Are Heavy, 2021
Interdisciplinary Fellow at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, 2020-2021
Indiana University Trustees Teaching Award, 2019
Humanities Without Walls The Work of the Humanities in a Changing Climate Grand Research Challenge: “Field to Media: Applied Musicology for a Changing Climate,” 2018-2020. With Mark Pedelty, PI (University of Minnesota); co-PIs Rebecca Dirksen (Indiana University) and Michael Silvers (University of Illinois)
Radcliffe Fellow 2016-17 at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellowship, 2016-2017 (declined)
IU Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning / Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Active Learning Grant, 2015
Plaque d’honneur « pour son dévouement à l’avancement de la musique
haïtienne », Conseil d’administration de la Banque de la République d’Haïti, January 2014

Books

Performing Environmentalisms

Expressive Culture and Ecological Change

John Holmes McDowell, Katherine Borland, Rebecca Dirksen, Sue Tuohy
2021

After the Dance, The Drums are Heavy

Carnival, Politics, and Musical Engagement in Haiti

Rebecca Dirksen
2020

Other publication highlights

“Haiti, Singing for the Land, Sea, and Sky: Cultivating Ecological Metaphysics and Environmental Awareness through Music.” In Sounds, Ecologies, Musics, edited by Aaron S. Allen and Jeff Todd Titon, 111-132. New York: Oxford University Press. [Reprinted and revised from 2018 article in MUSICultures 45(1-2).] (2023).
“Exploring the Environmental Humanities through Film Production.” In Empirical Ecocriticism: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Environmental Narrative, edited by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, W.P. Malecki, and Frank Hakemulder, 91-118. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Co-authored with Mark Pedelty, Yan Pang, and Elja Roy (2023).
“Between the Cracks: Navigating Trauma as an Ethnomusicologist.” In The Routledge Companion to Ethics and Research in Ethnomusicology, edited by Jonathan Stock and Beverley Diamond, 209-220. New York: Routledge (2022)
“Working Through Crisis: What Will It Take to Push for a Sound(er) Future for Haiti?” In Music, Communities, Sustainability: Developing Policies and Practices, 232-263. Edited by Huib Schippers and Anthony Seeger. New York: Oxford University Press (2022).
“Reinvoking Gran Bwa (Great Forest): Music, Environmental Justice, and a Vodou-Inspired Mission to Plant Trees across Haiti.” In The Routledge Companion to Music and Human Rights, 228-245. Edited by Julian Fifer, Angela Impey, Peter G. Kirchschlaeger, Manfred Nowak, and George Ulrich. Abingdon-on-Thames, UK: Routledge (2022).
"Ecomusicology: Tributaries and Distributaries of an Integral Field.” Music Research Annual 3. Co-authored with Mark Pedelty, Aaron Allen, Chiao-Wen Chiang, and Tyler Kinnear (2022).
“The Drum and the Seed: A Haitian Odyssey about Environmental Precarity.” Performing Environmentalisms: Expressive Culture and Ecological Change, 136-162. Edited by John McDowell, Katey Borland, Rebeca Dirksen, and Sue Tuohy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Co-authored with Lois Wilcken (2021).
“Zafé Fatra (The Affair of Trash) and the Affair of Scholarly Engagement: Can Music (and Music Scholarship) Really Clean Up the Streets of Port-au-Prince?” In Transforming Ethnomusicology, Vol. 1: Methodologies, Institutional Structures, and Policies, 110-130. Edited by Beverley Diamond and Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco. New York: Oxford University Press (2021).
“Kreyòl Sung, Kreyòl Understood: Haitian Songwriter BIC (Roosevelt Saillant) Reflects on Language and Poetics.” In Caribbean Migrations: The Legacies of Colonialism, edited by Anke Birkenmaier, 205–213. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Co-authored with Kendy Vérilus (2020).
“Field to Media: Applied Ecomusicology in the Anthropocene.” Popular Music 39(1): 22-42 (2020). With Mark Pedelty, Tara Hatfield, and Yan Pang.
“Haiti’s Hidden Archives and Accidental Archivists: A View on the Private Collections and Collectors at the Heart of Safeguarding the Nation’s Classical Music Heritage,” Latin American Music Review 40(1): 59-88 (2019).
“Haiti’s Drums and Trees: Facing Loss of the Sacred.” Ethnomusicology 63(1): 43-77 (2019).
“Haiti, Singing for the Land, Sea, and Sky: Cultivating Ecological Metaphysics and Environmental Awareness through Music.” MUSICultures 45(1-2): 112-135 (2018).
“Mixed Modes and Performance Codes of Political Demonstrations and Carnival in Haiti.” Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader, Vol. 2, 211-229. Edited by Jennifer Post. New York: Routledge (2017).
“Archives cachées d’Haïti: Comment les citoyens sauvegardent-ils l’héritage culturel de la musique classique haïtienne?” Conjonction (La revue franco-haïtienne de l’Institut Français d’Haïti), special edition “Haïti en musique” 228: 72-85. Port-au-Prince: Institut Français d’Haïti (2017).
“Baron la Croix: Variations de la pianiste-compositrice Carmen Brouard sur un thème Vodou.” In Bulletin du Bureau d’Ethnologie : Haiti : Fusions et Performances. Port-au-Prince: Bureau d’Ethnologie d’Haïti (2014).
“Surviving Material Poverty by Employing Cultural Wealth: Putting Music in the Service of Community in Haiti.” Yearbook for Traditional Music 45: 43-57. Special half-issue on Music and Poverty (2013).
“Reconsidering Theory and Practice in Ethnomusicology: Applying, Advocating, and Engaging beyond Academia.” Ethnomusicology Review 17 (2012).

Other forms of scholarship

Guest editor for the Journal of Haitian Studies 29(1) Special Issue on the Environment
A conversation between Dr. Dirksen and Dr. Isabel Machado on After the Dance, the Drums Are Heavy. Podcast on New Books Network: New Books in Caribbean Studies. March 2021.
“Sacred Drums, Sacred Trees: Haiti’s Changing Climate.” Multi-media exhibit at IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures. January 2019-December 2019.
Kè mwen fè mwen mal| Au coeur ça fait mal. Boulo Valcourt. Co-Producer and Co-Artistic Director; Author of liner notes; Graphic design / Artwork. Manoumba Records MR2016001. (Released in Haiti December 2016; global release January 2017)
“Thinking Beyond Your Degree: Eleven Suggestions for a Competitive Job Search.” Society for Ethnomusicology Student News, Vol. 12: 20-21 (2016).
The following entries in the Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography, editors-in-chief Franklin W. Knight and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Oxford University Press (2016): Lina Mathon Blanchet, Carmen Brouard, Lumane Casimir, Jean Jacques Clark Parent, Micheline Laudun Denis, Lénord “Azor” Fortuné, Viviane Gauthier, Nicolas Fénelon Geffrard, Mercédes Foucard “Déïta” Guignard, David “Ti-Coca” Mettelus, Nicole Saint-Victor, Henriot “Boulo” Valcourt.
Dirksen is also Senior Editor of cultural figures from the French Caribbean for the Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography.