Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco

Biography

I am a Professor Emerita of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA University of Lisbon (NOVA FCSH) and president Emerita of the Instituto de Etnomusicologia-Centro de Estudos em Música e Dança (INET-md), a research unit that I founded in 1995 and directed up to 2020, and that was repeatedly classified as “excellent” by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. I was elected Vice President and later President of the International Council for Traditional Music (1997-2001; 2009-2013; 2013-2021), and Vice-President of the Society for Ethnomusicology (2007-2009).

I earned a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology in 1980 at Columbia University. My academic career was launched at New York University where I was a tenure-track Assistant Professor from 1979 to 1981, and founded and directed an MA program in urban ethnomusicology. In 1982, I was appointed as Associate Professor at the newly founded Musicology Department at NOVA FCSH, completed my habilitation in 1986 and won a full professorship in 1988, the first in musicology in Portugal. I chaired the Musicology Department during its foundational and consolidation phases (1983-1988; 1995-1997). I was also Vice-Chancellor of the NOVA University of Lisbon (2005-2007) and was elected as a member of the Board of Trustees of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of the NOVA University (2013-2017). Throughout my career, I maintained close ties with academia in the US. I was visiting professor at Columbia University, Princeton University; Tinker Professor at Chicago University, and Gulbenkian Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. I was also Overseas Visiting Scholar at St. John’s College, Cambridge University.

I carried out field research in Portugal, Egypt and Oman resulting in publications on: cultural politics, musical nationalism, music heritage, music media, music and conflict, and institutional and disciplinary histories.

My main publications include: Music and the Making of Portugal and Spain: Nationalism and Identity Politics in the Iberian Peninsula (Ed. and co-author) with Matthew Machin-Autenrieth and Samuel Llano. Illinois University Press (2023); “The Fado Museum: Heritage Infrastructure or Tourist Attraction?” (with Iñigo Sánchez Fuarros), Via Tourism Review 23 (2023); “Sustainability, Agency and the Ecologies of Music Heritage in Alentejo, Portugal, in Music, Communities and Sustainability: Developing Policies and Practices, edited by Anthony Seeger and Huib Schippers. Oxford University Press (2022); Outros celtas: celtismo, modernidade e música global em Portugal e Espanha (Ed. and co-author with Susana Moreno Fernández & António Medeiros, chapter author. Tinta-da-China (2022). Transforming Ethnomusicology, 2 vols (Ed. and co-author with Beverly Diamond. Oxford University Press (2021); Portugal and Spain: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture with Susana Moreno Fernàndez. Oxford University Press (2018); “Jazz, Race and Politics in Colonial Portugal: Discourses and Representations (1924-1971)”, with Pedro Roxo (2016), in Philip Bohlman and Goffredo Plastino (eds.) Jazz Worlds/World Jazz. Chicago University Press (2016); “The Politics of Music Categorization in Portugal” in Philip Bohlman (ed.) The Cambridge History of World Music. Cambridge University Press (2013); Enciclopédia da Música em Portugal no Século XX (4 vols) (ed.). Círculo de Leitores/Temas e Debates (2010); Music and Conflict (co-editor with John O’Connell and author of the Epilogue). Illinois University Press (2010); Traditional Arts in Southern Arabia: Music and Society in Sohar, Sultanate of Oman (with Dieter Christensen). VWB Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung (2009).

I received the following awards and honors in recognition of my academic achievements: Glarean Award for music research of the Swiss Musicological Society (2013), the Gold & Silver Medals for Cultural merit of the City Halls of Lisbon and Cascais, respectively (2012 & 2007), the Pro-Author Award of the Portuguese Authors’ Society (2010), and a decoration of the Egyptian Minister of Culture (2019), Merit Prize awarded by INATEL (Portugal)|Multiculturalism (2021), Scientific Merit Award of the Foundation of Science and Technology, Portugal (2022), Honorary Member of the International Council for Traditional Music (2023), Intangible Culture Prize awarded by INATEL (2024), International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2024).