Doctor of Philosophy in Music - Ethnomusicology

The department faculty is particularly strong in the areas of African/a Studies, the Americas, the Caribbean, and South and Southeast Asia, in engaging musics across the Global South, and in conceptualizing music histories and ethnographies of islands, oceans, and waterways. Core faculty concerns include (but are not limited to) music, ethics, and the sacred, sound studies and ecomusicology, music and trauma, race, ethnicity, and empire, postcolonial studies, and decolonial methodologies. In the course of contributing to these overarching areas, individual faculty members in ethnomusicology pursue more focused lines of inquiry. Muller, for instance, writes extensively in the areas of gender studies and applied ethnomusicology in both South Africa and the US and is working in the area of trauma studies as well, Rommen continues to investigate the intersections between music and tourism and to explore projects of musical decoloniality in the Caribbean, and Sykes explores themes pertaining to war, capitalism, urban development, and ontological difference in Sri Lanka and Singapore.

Admission criteria: (1) the degree of distinction in course work; (2) achieving a high pass on both the first- and second-year comprehensive examinations; (3) satisfactory fulfilment of two out of four semesters of the teaching requirement; and (4) satisfaction of general requirements including languages and musicianship.

A strong command of the English language is necessary for successful study at Penn. Applicants whose families do not speak English at home, or applicants who have not attended a high school or secondary school where the primary language of instruction is English, are asked to take the TOEFL, the Test of English as a Foreign Language, administered by the Educational Testing Service. In the event the TOEFL is not readily accessible, Penn will accept results from the IELTS, the International English Language Testing System.