Dr. Conny Gruber

CV

M.A. Studies in Musicology and PhD in Ethnomusicology at the University of Vienna („Gendered Dance Spaces: The Interdependency of Gender through Dancing in Southwest Madagascar,“ 2018). DOC-fellowship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and Marietta Blau Grant from the Agency for Education and Internationalisation (OeAD).

Assistant Researcher at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media (2016–2020) and University Assistant (post doc) at the University of Vienna (2020–2022). Academy scientist at the Phonogrammarchiv, in charge of publications and editions since October 2022.

MAIN RESEARCH AREAS

Disciplinary research areas: music and dance research; gender studies (focus on queer studies, feminist and intersectional perspectives); methodologies of ethnographic music and dance research: audio-visual feedback methods, hybrid and multi-sited ethnography; engaged pedagogy;

Topics: the (re)cirulation of early sound recording; music/dance, political activism and power; hierarchies  and coloniality in/of academic knowledge production; the body, embodiment, and performativity; music/dance and healing; voguing and ballroom in Europe; music and dance in Madagascar;

Current research projects:

-  FWF 1000-ideas project “Reverse Ethnomusicology: Migrant Musicians as Researchers“ [Link: https://www.musicandminorities.org/projects/reverse-ethnomusicology-migrant-musicians-as-researchers/] (2023–2026)

- Recirculation of PhA sound recordings from 1904 to 1906 with people from what is Papua New Guinea today – Thematic Plattform ÖAW kolonial, Project 5.

PUBLICATIONS (selection)

Gabriela Dossow Ponce and Conny Gruber. 2025. „Reversas en Conversa: Sounds & Sights of Science #45“.5 September 2025, https://www.oeaw.ac.at/phonogrammarchiv/detail/sounds-sights-of-science-45

Gruber, Cornelia, Clemens Gütl and Alexander Silaen. 2025. The Entangled Colonial History of Sound Recordings. 30 January 2025, http://www.entangled-recordings.pha.oeaw.ac.at.

Gruber, Cornelia and Alexander Kavtaradze.2024. „Trinke nicht Wein, trinke einen Becher Buttermilch: Sounds & Sights of Science #30“. 7. Juni 2024, https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/phonogrammarchiv/phonogrammarchiv/detail/sounds-sights-of-science-30

Cornelia Gruber. 2024. „Kinästhetisches Wissen: Autorität durch Tanz und Gesang in Madagaskar“. InAutoritätsbildungen in der Musik, ed. by Bernd Brabec de Mori, Marc Antoine Camp und Dorit Klebe, 103–118. Zürich: Chronos Verlag.

Gruber, Cornelia, and Michael Fuhr. 2024. „Musik, Erinnern und kulturelles Gedächtnis. Perspektiven musikethnologischer Erinnerungsforschung“. In Musik, Erinnern und kulturelles Gedächtnis – Music, Remembering and Cultural Memory, ed. by Michael Fuhr and Cornelia Gruber, 9–45. Hildesheim: Universitätsverlag Hildesheim.

Fuhr, Michael, and Cornelia Gruber, eds. 2024. Musik, Erinnern und kulturelles Gedächtnis – Music, Remembering and Cultural Memory. Hildesheim: Universitätsverlag Hildesheim.

Brunner, Anja, and Conny Gruber. 2023. „Migrant Musicians as Researchers. An Experimental Project to Turn Ethnomusicology Upside Down. Or Put it on Its Feet?“, in mdw–WEBMAGAZIN,  https://www.mdw.ac.at/magazin/index.php/2023/11/27/migrierte-musiker_innen-als-forscher_innen/?lang=en.

Fuhr, Michael, and Cornelia Gruber. 2023. „Die Fachgruppe ‚Musikethnologie und vergleichende Musikwissenschaft‘ in der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung. Stationen - Positionen – Perspektiven“, Die Musikforschung 76/3, 281–288.

Cornelia Gruber, Charissa Granger, Marko Kölbl, and Talia Bachir-Loopuyt. 2022. “Working Together? Interrogating Collaboration towards Decolonizing Music and Dance Research.” In DIALOGUES: Towards Decolonizing Music and Dance Studies, hg. von Tan Sooi Beng and Marcia Ostashewski, https://ictmdialogues.org/, The Dialogues (11/24).

Cornelia Gruber. 2021. „Das Potenzial von videobasierten Feedbackmethoden für die Musikethnologie. Perspektiven auf Repräsentation, Wissensproduktion und Fragen der leiblichen Erfahrung“. In Musikethnographien im 21. Jahrhundert, edited by Barbara Alge, 89–115. Baden-Baden: Rombach Wissenschaft.

Cornelia Gruber. 2021. “Haunting the (Post)Colonial Gaze. Visual Representation and Perceptions of Ethnographic Music and Dance Research.” In Diggin' Up Music: Musikethnologie als Baustelle,edited by Michael Fuhr, Kerstin Klenke und Julio Mendívil, 140–159. Hildesheim: Olms Verlag.

Cornelia Gruber. 2019. „Politics of Women Dancing in Madagascar: Relating Critical Perspectives on Gender”. In Ethnomusicology Matters. Influencing Social and Political Realities, edited by Ursula Hemetek, Marko Kölbl and Hande Sağlam (double blind peer-reviewed), 163–190. Wien (u.a.): Böhlau.

Cornelia Gruber. 2015. „Spaces of Interaction: An intersectional approach to dancing in mortuary ceremonies in Southwest Madagascar.” International Forum on Audio-Visual Research – Jahrbuch des Phonogrammarchivs 6, 51–73.

Anja Brunner, Cornelia Gruber, and August Schmidhofer (eds.). 2015. Transgressions of a musical kind. Festschrift für Regine Allgayer-Kaufmann zum 65. Geburtstag. Aachen: Shaker Verlag.

Teaching

At the University of Vienna (Link: ufind.univie.ac.at/de/person.html)