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Oliver Shao

Associate Professor

Contact

Bio

Oliver Shao (he/him) is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology in the Liberal Arts Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). He is also the coordinator for the Music, Dance, and Theater Program at SAIC, and is a member of the Society for Ethnomusicology Council.

His first book, Composing Aid (Indiana University Press 2023) considers the fraught dynamics of the United Nations-administered Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwestern Kenya. This work offers critical insights into the cultural-economy of a long-term humanitarian encampment, the design and social impact of music and arts initiatives, and the reimagining of state and humanitarian approaches towards forced migration. Shao's recent research continues to probe music's intersection with beings, spaces, and histories shaped by international and imperial systems of violence and inequality. His latest article project examines how popular music reveals and responds to the emotions and affects entwined with long histories of anti-Asian racism in the United States. His most recent research focuses on musicians, artists, and activists confronting the environmental devastation of capitalism.

Education: PhD 2019, Distinguished, Ethnomusicology. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. (Recipient of the Distinguished Ph.D. Dissertation Award in the Humanities); MMus 2010, Distinction, Ethnomusicology, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, UK  

Awards

Bruno Nettl (Honorable Mention), awarded by the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) for Composing Aid: Music, Refugees, and Humanitarian Politics, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2024

Social Justice Paper Prize (Crossroads Section for Difference and Representation), awarded by the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) for conference paper: “UN-Peaceful Music: The Limits of Music for Peace Projects in a Kenyan/UNHCR Refugee Camp,” 2021

Applied Ethnomusicology Section Paper/Project Prize, awarded by the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) for conference paper: “UN-Peaceful Music: The Limits of Music for Peace Projects in a Kenyan/UNHCR Refugee Camp,” 2021

Publications

“Viral Voices: Rapping against the Emotions of Anti-Asian Racism.” Journal of Popular Music Studies. University of California Press. 37(3): 43-64, 2025

Composing Aid: Music, Refugees, and Humanitarian Politics. Indiana University Press, 2023

“’How is that going to help anyone?’: A Critical Activist Ethnomusicology” in Transforming Ethnomusicology: Volume I Methodologies, Institutional Structures, and Policies, pp 87-100, edited by Beverley Diamond and Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco, Oxford University Press, 2021

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

What does it mean to hear the world through ?imperial ears?? How can music and sound be used to decolonize minds, bodies, and land? What can listening to music teach us about the interwoven relationships between colonizing and decolonizing forces? This course will address these questions and others through examining the diverse roles of music in various colonial and postcolonial contexts. We will study a range of topics that include British colonialism?s impact on music and sonic practices; the role of music in resistance movements in Africa and Asia-Pacific; and the capacities of music to negotiate, oppose, and refigure colonial legacies. This course aims to strengthen our abilities to hear and critique the echoes and reverberations of coloniality across time and space. Most importantly, we will center our attention on the sounds and songs of indigeneity with an emphasis on the role of musicians and communities involved in generating freedom from oppression. Coursework may include short writing assignments, essays, presentations, and podcasts.

Class Number

1532

Credits

3

Description

This course examines the roots and routes of hip hop from its emergence in New York City to its circulation across select areas of the globe. Why do people living in different parts of the world engage in hip hop? What kinds of aesthetics, ideologies, and behaviors are manifested through hip hop music? How do hip hop scenes differ, and how are they connected? We will discuss these, and other questions, through studying the lived experiences of participants involved in various hip hop music scenes throughout the globe.

Through analyzing films, texts, and audio/visual recordings, we will develop our vocabulary for critically discussing the manifestation of hip hop cultural practices across temporal, spatial, and social boundaries. We will pay particular attention to the ways cross-cultural engagements with hip hop shapes intersecting identities of race, gender, sexuality, class, religion, and nation. We will also consider what hip hop artists can teach us about pressing global issues ranging from racism and sexism to economic marginalization and religious discrimination.

Coursework will include reading responses, short writing assignments, and a final research paper/presentation that focuses on the social life of a hip hop performing artist(s).

Class Number

1476

Credits

3

Description

Selected issues in music and related areas are studied. Topics vary each semester and may include (but are not limited to): musical structure and form, aural literacy, opera studies, music and words, music and the visual arts, history of recorded music, history of the oral tradition, semiotics, communications theory, and others.

Class Number

1495

Credits

3

Description

What does the climate crisis sound like? How can music increase, reduce, and stop carbon pollution? Why is it necessary to interrogate the relationship between the culture industries and climate disasters? This course examines the intricate connections between music, sound, and anthropogenic climate change, with a particular focus on the entwined forces of colonialism and capitalism. Drawing on scholarship in ethnomusicology, historical musicology, sound studies, and environmental studies, we will explore how musical practices and media industries contribute to environmental degradation and perpetuate the inequities of the climate crisis. We will also study how music and sound can inspire and support more sustainable ways of living. Coursework will include oral and written assignments, along with activities where students apply research methods to their own engagements with this urgent existential issue.

Class Number

2402

Credits

3

Description

This course examines the multifaceted ways music is interwoven with social processes of war and peace. In what ways do people use musical sounds to control, torture, and kill individuals and populations? What types of concepts elucidate the ways music reproduces oft-hidden forms of violence? How can music heal trauma and resolve conflict? Throughout this course, we will work towards developing a deeper understanding about the ways music is used to support, oppose, and heal from actions and consequences made in the name of war and peace.

Through studying films, texts, and audio recordings, students are expected to think critically and write persuasively about the diverse ways musicians, politicians, military personnel, and civilians use music in wartime contexts. While case studies will vary, we will pay particular attention to the role of Western popular music in the United States-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A broader goal of this course is to analyze music in ways that generate critical responses to the permeation of violence throughout society and everyday life.

Coursework will include reading responses, short writing assignments, a mid-term, and a final project.

Class Number

2377

Credits

3