by Eli Weiner (LACIS Social Media/Outreach Intern, BBA – Marketing, BA – LACIS, ’16)
Recent LACIS alum Jacob Wolbert is currently pursuing his PhD in ethnomusicology at the University of Cal-Berkeley. I reached out to him to hear about his current pursuit of his doctorate, to see how LACIS has helped him along the way, and to find out just what ethnomusicology means. Here’s what he had to say.
What is ethnomusicology exactly? Why are you passionate about it?
Ethnomusicology is a multi-faceted discipline that studies diverse fields such as anthropology, sociology, and history, through the comparative lens of music. It generally focuses on the music of non-Western cultures (ie. not European classical music). As a scholar who has always made sense of the world through music, and someone who remains infinitely interested in Latin America, ethnomusicology has been an obvious choice for me, pretty much since I found out that it existed.
How did you get involved with LACIS?
My mother, who used to work for the UW System, and therefore knew about many amazing opportunities at UW-Madison, recommended that I look into LACIS when I was an incoming sophomore. After speaking with Sarah Ripp, I determined that this degree would be the perfect complement to the music performance degree I was already pursuing. Since UW-Madison has no ethnomusicology undergraduate degree, I consider the work I did between the two degrees to come close to what such a degree would look like.
What was your experience with LACIS? Favorite LACIS classes?
I enjoyed every class I took through LACIS, but a couple that come to mind would be Luís Madureira’s LACIS 260 (Survey of Latin American Political History) and Alberto Vargas’ LACIS 603 (the capstone seminar, in which we looked at current affairs in Latin American countries).
Through the wonderful courses and seminars, the weekly emails (full of career and academic opportunities), and the outstanding staff and faculty affiliated with the program, I now feel very confident in my ability to weave through interconnected disciplines and parse out the knowledge most interesting and most important to me, employing it to help create new knowledge and better the lives of others. I have chosen to continue that with a graduate degree, but LACIS makes sure that students are aware of all the different ways to do that.Most importantly to me, LACIS helped add a new dimension to my lifelong love of music and gave it a sense of purpose that I would not have been able to find on my own.
What advice can you offer to students (especially those studying LACIS-related topics)?