Linda Cimardi
PhD
Linda Cimardi is an ethnomusicologist whose research explores how music, dance, and performance intersect with gender, race, politics, and transnational cultural exchange. Her work brings together ethnomusicology, performance studies, and postcolonial perspectives, with a particular focus on Central and East Africa, the circulation of African and, more broadly, Black musics in Europe, and the cultural politics of the Cold War and the Non-Aligned Movement.
Since September 2026, Cimardi has been a University Assistant/Postdoc at the University Mozarteum Salzburg / Innsbruck. She holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Bologna and has been an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Phonogram Archive of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin and a Guest Researcher in Ethnomusicology at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (KUG). Her field research has taken her to Uganda, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Austria.
A central strand of her research examines the practice, circulation, reception, and representation of Black musics in the former Yugoslav region, investigating how musical encounters have shaped ideas of race, identity, solidarity, and cultural difference across socialist and postcolonial Europe. From 2022 to 2026, she was Principal Investigator of the DFG-funded project “Black Musics in the (Former) Yugoslav Region” at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (https://www.musikwiss.uni-halle.de/drittmittelprojekteundforschung/drittmittelprojekte/yugoslavregion/).
Her research on gender and performing arts includes extensive work on music, dance, and gender in Uganda, culminating in her 2023 monograph Performing Arts and Gender in Postcolonial Western Uganda. More broadly, her work examines how performance practices negotiate social identities, political histories, and changing notions of cultural belonging.
Her work on European folk music in Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Austria focuses on musical revival and political engagement, as well as on the transposition of music and dance practices across different diasporic contexts, investigating processes of identity formation, community building, and the negotiation of belonging.
WS 2026: VU „Einführung in der Musikethnologie und Musikanthropologie”
SS 2026/27: SE „Musik und Politik im Kalten Krieg”
Monografien (* peer-reviewed)
* Performing Arts and Gender in Postcolonial Western Uganda. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2023.
mit Vixia Maggini, Ilario Meandri, Guido Raschieri La Posavina canta e piange. Vol. II. Il movimento nella danza e nella performance strumentale. Lucca: LIM. Inkl. 1 DVD, 2016.
Zeitschriftenartikel (* peer-reviewed)
* “Engaging for Africa. Popular Songs by African Students in Yugoslavia”. Narodna Umjetnost 63 (1), 209–231, 2026.
* “‘Valeurs culturelles et artistiques d’intérêt universel’. Aesthetic and Scientific Quandaries around the UNESCO Anthology of African Music”. Etnografie Sonore / Sound Ethnographies 8 (1-2), 1–26, 2025.
* “Displaying and Listening to Africa: Live Events of African Musics and Dances in the Museums of the Yugoslav Region”. Muzikologija 39, 355–381, 2025.
* “Whose jembe? A Drum as a Countercultural Icon and a Symbol of African Authenticity in Zagreb”. Ethnomusicology Forum 31 (3), 393–411, 2022.
“African Musics in Europe”. Ethnomusicology Forum 31 (3), 326–331, 2022.
* “‘One of the Richest and Most Refined Forms of Art in the World.’ Alain Daniélou, the Archive, and Indian Music”. The World of Music 10 (1), 71–92, 2021.
* “Folklore and Tradition in Ethnomusicology. A Comparison of Their Use and Meaning in Italian and Croatian through English”. Raspave: Časopis Instituta za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje 44 (2), 355–371, 2018.
* “Dall’Asia all’Occidente – via Venezia. Festival e musica orientale in Europa negli anni Sessanta e Settanta”. Il Saggiatore musicale 25 (1), 105–128, 2018.
* “‘Reviving’ Tradition Through Digital Technologies. Traditional Repertoires and Neo-Traditional Songs in Western Uganda”. Philomusica on-line 16 (1), 13–42, 2017.
* “From ‘Tribes’ to ‘Regions’. Ethnicity and Musical Identity in Western Uganda”. Perifèria - Revista de recerca i formació en antropologia 20 (2), 44–59, 2015.
“Twins in Myth and in Music. Historical Controversies over Winyi I’s Tomb in Kibulala (Central Uganda)”. Uganda Journal 53, 37–63. Special Issue: Sacred Natural Sites and Cultural Heritage in East Africa, 2013.
Herausgeberschaft (* peer-reviewed)
mit Iva Nenić, Women’s Leadership in Music. Modes, Legacies, Alliances. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2023.
* Special issue: African Musics in Europe. Ethnomusicology Forum 31 (3), 2022.
Buchbeiträge
* “Exhibiting and Hiding Gender. Runyege between Moralized Tradition and Queered Representation”. In Music, Dance, and Inequalities. Hg. v. Marko Kölbl und Hande Sağlam. Wien: Institut für Volksmusikforschung und Ethnomusikologie, 16–29, 2025.
* “Black Popular Musics in Yugoslavia”. In The Routledge Handbook of Popular Music and Politics of the Balkans. Hg. v. Catherine Baker. London: Routledge, 451–461, 2024.
“Between Home and International Scenes. Sarah Ndagire’s Ugandan Way to World Music”. In Women’s Leadership in Music. Modes, Legacies, Alliances. Hg. v. Linda Cimardi und Iva Nenić. Bielefeld: Transcript, 35–52, 2023.
mit Iva Nenić, “Introduction. Women’s Modes, Heritages and Alliances in Music”. In Women’s Leadership in Music. Modes, Legacies, Alliances. Hg. v. Iva Nenić und Linda Cimardi. Bielefeld: transcript, 9–14, 2023.
“The African Music Scene in Croatia. From Global Influences to Local Elaborations”. In Music of the Twenty-First Century Diasporas: Research and Methods. Hg. v. Serena Facci und Giovanni Giuriati. Venedig: Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 116–127, 2022.
“Postkoloniale Felder und das reflexive Selbst. Ethnographische Herausforderungen und öffentliche Narrative”. In Musikethnographien im 21. Jahrhundert. Hg. v. Barbara Alge. Baden-Baden: Rombach Wissenschaft, 45–66, 2021.
“Folklore Shaping the Diaspora: Cultural-Artistic Associations from Bosnian Posavina in Zagreb and Vienna”. In Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe Migrations, Carnival, Sustainable Development. Hg. v. Liz Mellish, Nick Green und Tvrtko Zebec. Zagreb: Institut za Etnologiju i folkloristiku und ICTM Study Group on Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe, 41–49, 2020.
“Dances from Bosnian Posavina in the Post-Yugoslavian Context”. In Tradition and Transition. A Selection of Articles Developed from Paper Presentations at the First and Second Symposia of the ICTM Study Group on Music and Dance of the Slavic World. Hg. v. Sonja Zdravkova Djeparoska. Skopje: ICTM National Committee Macedonia, 65–85, 2020.
“Teaching and Performing ‘Traditional Folksongs’ in Western Uganda Schools”. In Music Traditions, Change and Creativity in Africa. Past and Present. Hg. v. Giorgio Adamo und Alessandro Cosentino. Rom: NeoClassica, 111–138, 2019.
“The Construction of Ethnic Identity Through Music in Uganda”. In Making Music, Making Society. Hg. v. José Martí und Sara R. Gútiez. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar Publishing, 95–122, 2017.
“Sacredness and Shame: The Baseegu from Western Uganda”. In Local & Universal. MUSICULT ’15 / Music and Cultural Studies Conference Proceedings. Hg. v. Songül Karahasanoğlu. Istanbul: DAKAM Publishing, 163–187, 2015.
Links