Julia Kursell’s recent research concerns 20^th- and 21^st-century composition, the cultural techniques of music, and the histories of acoustics, physiology and psychology in relation to music. As a professor at the UvA, she will conduct research into the common histories of systematic and historical sub-disciplines of musicology in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Kursell wants to promote dialogue between musicology, sound studies and media studies. She also wants to encourage collaboration with other disciplines, both within the humanities and the natural sciences. Kursell is also interested in the role that digital media can play with regard to teaching and research in the field of musicology.

Prior to coming to the UvA, Kursell was a research fellow at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (Germany) and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin). At the Max Planck Institute, she headed ‘The Virtual Laboratory’ project, a digital platform for the history of experimental life sciences. Previously, she worked as an assistant professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (Munich) and as a researcher at the Centre for Literary and Cultural Studies (Berlin). She wrote the book Schallkunst. Eine Literaturgeschichte der Musik in der frühen russischen Avantgarde (Vienna, 2003). In addition, she has published numerous articles in professional journals, such as MusikTheorie, Greyroom, Configurations, and Archiv für Mediengeschichte.