Alexander Karvelas

Bio

Alexander is a PhD student in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also participating in the Interdisciplinary PhD Emphasis in Environment and Society, and his research is focused on the intersections of music, sound, and environment. Alexander’s dissertation project engages permaculture landforms as sites of human and more-than-human sonic creativity and collaborative expressivity, with an ear toward the relationship between listening practices and environmental justice work. Alexander also studies the modal traditions of the Middle East, Central Asia, and India, attending specifically to the relationship between musical practices and nation-building projects in these regions. These various research directions are guided by an underlying commitment to understanding how acoustic and musical experiences shape senses of community, belonging, and responsibility within and across social and ecological levels.