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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

1657

Credits

3

Description

Why are artists using music to help connect their audiences to nature? Why does music listening under late capitalism require endless energy? Why are certain musical ontologies more in harmony with planetary limits over others? This course will explore these questions, and others, through examining the multifaceted relationship between music and nature within the context of capitalism. Throughout the semester, we will grapple with various theoretical perspectives including: nature in music; music as nature; music for nature; and the nature of music itself. Exploring these facets of music and nature is crucial for advancing our understanding of and relations with humans and other life forms. We will approach this course through a host of fields including ethnomusicology, historical musicology, anthropology, acoustic ecology, ecological-economics, and Indigenous studies. Coursework may include writing assignments, ecological soundwalks, and close listening activities, among others.

Class Number

1678

Credits

3