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Ron Emoff

Associate Professor, Ethno/musicology
School of Music, Department of Anthropology
Ohio State University-Newark
1179 University Blvd.
Newark, OH
    43055
(740) 366-9271
emoff.1@osu.edu


Click here for Music played by Dr. Emoff.
Photos of Madagascar and Marie-Galante

Sample (condensed) Course Syllabi

Music 345.01 "Ethnic," Regional, and Border Musics in the US
Music 345.01 World Beat in Africa
Music 672  Graduate  Introduction to Ethnomusicology
Music 950.01 Musical Expression in a Postcolonial State

MUS H345


Ron Emoff is Associate Professor of Music and Anthropology at OSU-Newark.  He received the PhD in ethnomusicology from University of Texas at Austin, where he also intensively studied anthropology and critical theory.  While a graduate student in Austin, he actively performed various musics on, among other things, kora (a West African stringed instrument), accordion, violin, 'ud, and valiha (a stringed instrument from Madagascar).

 

He has performed ethnographic research in Madagascar, Southwest Louisiana, and the French Antilles. Some of his current research interests involve the evocation, creation, and sustenance of memory through music, colonialism and postcolonialism, spirituality, musical constructions of self and community, and establishing histories through musical production and reception.

 

Dr. Emoff's research and publication activity has been funded by Fulbright and Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Grants,  a Wenner Gren Foundation Richard Carley Hunt Fellowship, two Ohio State University Research and Scholarly Activities Grants, and an Ohio State University Seed Grant.

 

In 2003, Dr. Emoff was recipient of the Ohio State University-Newark Scholarly Achievement Award; he was also recipient of the 2003 OSU-Newark Service Award.

 

Dr. Emoff received the 2006 OSU-Newark Award for Teaching Excellence.

 

At Ohio State University-Newark, Dr. Emoff has taught Music Cultures Throughout the World, Selective History of European Music, "Ethnic," Regional, and Border Musics in the United States, and World Beat in Africa,  all undergraduate courses. During Fall 2003 he taught Musical Expression in a Postcolonial State, a graduate ethnomusicology seminar on the main campus of Ohio State University in Columbus. Dr. Emoff has built a recording studio, sound analysis, and video production lab on the Newark campus that houses the same state-of-the-art software and hardware used in professional international recording studios.  He teaches an Honors Course, Recording Technology and the Music Business MUS 345.01, in this new lab space.

 

Dr. Emoff directs an Afropop ensemble at OSU-Newark in which students learn to perform currently popular dance musics from throughout Africa.  Several performances both on- and off-campus are staged by the students each quarter. He also coordinates the OSU-Newark Great Performers Series, in which a diverse array of musical and other talent is presented to the Newark community.

 

Dr. Emoff has a joint appointment as in the OSU Department of Anthropology, and he teaches independent study and directed reading courses in Cultural Anthropology at OSU-Newark.


Dr. Emoff's Publications


     Books


            

In press

Music and the Performance of Identity on Marie-Galante, French Antilles.  London: Ashgate Press.

 

2002

RECOLLECTING FROM THE  PAST  Musical Practice and Spirit Possession on the East Coast of Madagascar Wesleyan University Press, Music and Culture Series. 

 

2002

Mementos, Artifacts, and Hallucinations from the Ethnograper's Tent. Routledge Press, London and NY.


     Journal Articles


  In press "Truth, Talk, and History in the Non-Nation: Gwo Ka's Place on Marie-Galante, French Antilles." Ethnomusicology Forum (British Journal of Ethnomusicology).

 

In review

"Tromba Children, Maresaka, and Postcolonial Malady in Madagascar."   Ethos (Journal of Psychological Anthropology)  

 

2003

“Direct Current Recall,”   TDR (The Drama Review), 47(3): 32-44. New York University/MIT Press. Richard Schechner, ed.

 

2002

“Phantom Nostalgia and Recollecting (from) the Colonial Past in Tamatave, Madagascar,” Ethnomusicology, 46 (2): 265-283.

 

2002

“Alterations in Accordion Structure on the East Coast of Madagascar.” Musical Performance, 3(2-4): 243-257. London: Harwood Academic Publishers, Taylor and Francis Group. 

 

2000

“Clinton, Bush, and Hussein in Madagascar.”  In The World of Music, Vol. 3. 

 

2000

As guest editor, preface to The World of Music, Vol. 3. 

 

1998

“A Cajun Poetics of Loss and Longing.” Ethnomusicology,  42(2):283-301. 


     Encyclopedia entries


  In press "Overview of Musical Practices on Madagascar." In Concise Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc

     Book Chapters


 

2004

“Spitting into the Wind:  Multi-Edged Environmentalism in Malagasy Song.” In Island Musics, Oxford, UK:  Berg Publishers, Kevin Dawe, ed.

 

2003

“Material Media of Maresaka: Tromba Spirit Possession on the East Coast of Madagascar.” In The Interrelatedness of Music, Religion and Ritual in African Performance Practice. UK: Mellen Press, Daniel Avorgbedor, ed. 

 

2002

“Wildness in the Heart of Town.”  In Mementos, Artifacts, and Hallucinations from the Ethnographer’s Tent. London and NY: Routledge Press Ron Emoff and David Henderson, eds. 

 

2002

“Introduction.” In Mementos, Artifacts, and Hallucinations from the Ethnographer’s Tent. London and NY: Routledge Press. Ron Emoff and David Henderson, eds. 


     Compact Discs


 

2004

VINELO: Maître du maro vany  (valiha Antandroy) de Madagascar. Compact disc sound recording  of my field tapes; includes 10 page booklet of notes and photograph. Genève, Switzerland: VDE Gallo, CD 1140. 

 

2003

“Antandroy Tromba Spirit Possession music by Magnampy Soa,” 3 sample tracks of original field recordings in Madagascar for People, Places, and Change, Music of the World,  CD that accompanies school text book.  Austin, TX: Holt, Rhinehart, and Winston.

 

2001

Spirit Musics from the East Coast of Madagascar. Paris:UNESCO/ Naive.  Compact disc sound recording  of my field tapes; includes 10 page booklet of notes and photographs. Auvidis 065, D8282. 

 

2001

Accordions and Ancestral Spirits, CD with booklet of extensive notes and photographs, Genève, Switzerland: VDE  Gallo, CD 1065. 


     Photographs


 

2000

Cover photo, entitled “Le musicien malgache Tsiariagna  jouant de l’akordôgna,”   of  Cahiers de musiques traditionelles, “Métissages,” vol. 13.


     Reviews


  2006 The Rough Guide to the Music of Madagascar Valiha & Marovany: The Real Soundtrack to Madagascar, 2005, compact disc. World Music Network (UK) RGNET 1163 CD. Booklet (11 pp.) with notes (in English). Ethnomusicology.

 

2006

René Lacaille, Mapou. Compact disc. Riverboat Records/World Music Network, (UK) TUGCD1033. Booklet (18 pp.) with notes in French and English, and song texts in French, English, and Créole French (notes by René Lacaille). In Ethnomusicology 50 (1). 

 

2003

Madagascar côte ouest: Antandroy, Masikoro, Vezo. 2001. Recorded in Madagascar in 1963 by Charles Duvelle.   Prophet 25, Philips Music Group France. One compact disc (51’ 19’’). Booklet, 19  pages with notes in French and English by Charles Duvelle; photos, map. In Ethnomusicology (47) 2: 278-80.

 

2001

Rakoto Frah, Flute Master of Madagascar (CD, Globe Style Recording). In Yearbook for Traditional Music.

 

2001

Madagascar: Musique des Sakalava Menabe/Hommage à Mama Sana (CD, Inedit, Maison de Cultures de Monde). In Yearbook for Traditional Music. 

 

2000

Nationalists, Cosmopolitans, and Popular Music in Zimbabwe by Thomas Turino, University of Chicago Press. In Current Musicology, volume #70, pp. 158-163. 

 

1999

Madagascar: Awakening the Spirits: Music in Tromba and Bilo Trance Rituals (CD).  In Yearbook For Traditional Music.

 

1998

The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 1,  Africa .  Ruth Stone, ed.  In Notes.

 

1998

Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music/Consuming Technology by Paul Théberge, Wesleyan University Press.  In Notes.  

 

1998

Nightsong: Performance, Power, and Practice in South Africa by Veit Erlmann, University of Chicago Press. In American Ethnologist. 


     Recent Invited Papers


 

2005

Official Versions of History in the  Non-Nation: Drumming on Marie-Galante, French West Indies, panel paper given at annual Society for Ethnomusicology meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. 

 

2003

Chair of panel entitled, A Memory for Semblance, Society for Ethnomusicology meeting, Miami, Florida; presentation on this panel of paper entitled, Négritude on Marie-Galante: The Subsurreal and Looking Back on an out of the Way Place.   

 

2003

Spitting into the Wind: Multi-edged Environmentalism in Malagasy Popular Song.  Indiana University Guest Scholar Colloquium, hosted by the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, and the Department of African Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington. 

 

2003

Négritude on Marie-Galante: The Subsurreal and Looking Back on an out of the Way Place, paper given as part of panel A Memory for Semblance, at annual Society for Ethnomusicology meeting in Miami, Florida. 

 

2003

Mementos, Artifacts, and Hallucinations from the Ethnographer’s Tent, presented at St. Lawrence University, Department of Music. 

 

2003

Musical Négritude on Marie-Galante, French Antilles. Ohio State University, School of Music, Guest Lecture Colloquium. 

 

2002

Ethnography’s Nervous System: Recent Fieldwork on Marie-Galante. University of Virginia, School of Music Guest Speaker Colloquium. 

 

2002

Squeezing the Hyphen out of Tex-Mex: Norteño Accordion in Texas.OSU-Columbus, Multi-Cultural Center, panel for Latin American Awareness Month.

 

2002

Direct-Current Recall–Guest Lecturer Series, School of Music, Ohio State University, Columbus. 

 

2001

Clinton, Bush, and Hussein in Madagascar–Ohio State University-Newark faculty presentation.

 

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