Joseph Browning

Dr Joseph Browning is Senior Lecturer in Music in the Department of Performing Arts. His work explores the ecological dimensions of musical practice, from "nature" and "environment" as themes in contemporary compositions through to more-than-human perspectives on instrument-making and site-specificity. Other interests include cultures of creativity and reception within late capitalism, and processes of cultural encounter in cosmopolitan musical scenes. His research examines these issues in a range of genres and settings, including music for the Japanese shakuhachi, Western art music, contemporary classical music, and sound art.

Joe's current research project is an ethnographic study of the UK contemporary music scene, exploring how ideas about musical organicism and vitalism – which imagine music as patterned or animated like the natural world – relate to debates around environmentalism, biopolitics and the role of contemporary music in today’s society.

After an undergraduate degree at the University of York, Joe studied for a Masters in Music and then a PhD in Ethnomusicology at SOAS, University of London. His PhD thesis was an ethnographic study exploring themes of nature, place and materiality in the transnational shakuhachi scene. He conducted postdoctoral research at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (University of Melbourne) and was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford and St Hilda's College, Oxford, and later at City, University of London.

Joe performs a range of traditional and contemporary music for shakuhachi and has collaborated with composers, choreographers and dancers on new pieces for the instrument. He studied Javanese gamelan as a Darmasiswa scholar at ISI Surakarta (2009-2010) and has played with gamelan groups in Australia, the UK and Indonesia.

Qualifications

• PhD Ethnomusicology, SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom, 2015
• MMus Ethnomusicology (Distinction), SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom, 2008
• BMus (Distinction), University of York, United Kingdom, 2006

Employment

• British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, 2018 - 2020
• Postdoctoral Research Fellow (part-time), Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (University of Melbourne), Australia, 2015 - 2017
• Teaching Fellow/Senior Teaching Fellow, SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom, 2011 - 2015

Climate Crisis Thinking in the Humanities and Social Sciences