The Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology is proud to welcome our two Visiting Assistant Professors starting Fall 2022, Dr. Oladele Ayorinde and Dr. Jeffrey Dyer! They will be teaching a variety of courses including economic ethnomusicology, contemporary music in Africa, music & religion in Southeast Asia, and music & violence across Asia.
Dr. Oladele Ayorinde received his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology this year from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Located primarily in South Africa and Nigeria, his work explores music and music-making as a window into contemporary Africa's complex processes of social, political, and economic development. Dr. Ayorinde was a THInK (Transforming Humanities Through Interdisciplinary Knowledge) Fellow at the Wits School of Arts, where he convened the Wits Festival Study Group and contributed to the “Wits Jazz Cosmology,” a social justice project concerned with diversity, equity, and inclusion, and empowerment of historically disadvantaged people in contemporary South Africa. Situated at the intersections of economic ethnomusicology, anthropology, and history, Dr. Ayorinde's work on Fújì music and the Nigerian music industry in Lagos has designed a framework for mapping the spheres of value in the African informal economies like the live and recorded music sectors, festivals, and heritage sectors—both for academic knowledge and policy development. His interests include urban ethnography and participatory-action research in music, music industry, African music performance practices, cultural entrepreneurship, economic ethnomusicology, cultural policy and management, the political economy of everyday life, archiving and documentation, and issues of transformation and decolonization in Sub-Saharan Africa and Black diaspora.
Dr. Jeffrey Dyer completed his Ph.D. degree in ethnomusicology at Boston University earlier this year. His work explores the intersection of music and religion in Southeast Asia, and incorporates ideas from sound studies, violence and trauma studies, and the anthropology of history. His dissertation rethinks the post-genocide ethics of history and trauma in Cambodia by examining how Cambodians use music and sound to form relations of mutual care with deities and the dead. Dr. Dyer presents a critique of how Western biomedical notions of trauma, illness, and wellness have been exported to Cambodia as universal processes. Instead, he argues for foregrounding Cambodians’ holistic experiences of wellbeing, in which people’s perceptions of sickness and wellness are entangled with their relations with other people and especially with ancestors, deities, and other unseen beings. Since his first fieldwork trip to Cambodia, Dr. Dyer has been collaborating with Cambodian-American musicians, dancers, and community leaders on a host of community-related projects.
Dr. Jeffrey Dyer completed his Ph.D. degree in ethnomusicology at Boston University earlier this year. His work explores the intersection of music and religion in Southeast Asia, and incorporates ideas from sound studies, violence and trauma studies, and the anthropology of history. His dissertation rethinks the post-genocide ethics of history and trauma in Cambodia by examining how Cambodians use music and sound to form relations of mutual care with deities and the dead. Dr. Dyer presents a critique of how Western biomedical notions of trauma, illness, and wellness have been exported to Cambodia as universal processes. Instead, he argues for foregrounding Cambodians’ holistic experiences of wellbeing, in which people’s perceptions of sickness and wellness are entangled with their relations with other people and especially with ancestors, deities, and other unseen beings. Since his first fieldwork trip to Cambodia, Dr. Dyer has been collaborating with Cambodian-American musicians, dancers, and community leaders on a host of community-related projects.
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