Centre for Digital Anthropology Annual Lecture

Georgina Born is Professor of Music and Anthropology at Oxford University. She trained in Anthropology at UCL in the 1980s, working at the same time as a musician with Henry Cow, the Feminist Improvising Group, Derek Bailey’s Company and as a member of the London Musicians’ Collective. Her work combines ethnographic and theoretical writings on music, sound, digital media, television and public broadcasting. Her books include Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde, Interdisciplinarity, Music, Sound and Space, and Improvisation and Social Aesthetics. A double issue of Contemporary Music Review is just out on the theme of ‘Music, Mediation Theories and Actor-Network Theory’. A 2018 article ‘From microsound to vaporwave: Internet-mediated musics, online methods, and genre’ (co-authored with Christopher Haworth)) used ethnography and digital methods to analyse online music cultures. She directs the ERC-funded research program ‘Music, Digitization, Mediation: Towards Interdisciplinary Music Studies’ and has held visiting professorships at UC Berkeley, McGill, Oslo and Aarhus Universities. She chairs the Culture, Media and Performance Section of the British Academy.