Dr. Julia Kursell

Biography

Julia Kursell is a professor and chair at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Amsterdam. She studied musicology, Slavic philology, and comparative literature at institutions in Munich, Moscow, and Los Angeles. She completed her doctoral studies at Munich University with a thesis on early Russian Avant-Garde music. Before moving to Amsterdam, she served as an assistant professor in the Slavic Department at Munich University and as a research fellow at the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies in Berlin. From 2004 to 2011, she worked at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, where she was part of the research group “Experimentalization of Life.” In 2013, she received her Habilitation (professorial degree) in musicology and history of science from the Technical University of Berlin, with her book entitled 'Epistemologie des Hörens: Helmholtz' physiologische Grundlegung der Musiktheorie.' Her research interests focus on 20th and 21st-century composition and the relationships between music and science. She is also the co-director of the UvA's Vossius Center for the History of Humanities and Sciences and serves as the founding editor of the journal 'History of Humanities.'

Research Interests