Background and activities

I am a writer, teacher, researcher, musician, activist, and associate professor in ethnomusicology at NTNU. My experiments in scholarship, pedagogy, and outreach explore the powerful connections between musical performance and a range of interdisciplinary issues, including justice, community, well-being, digitality, spirituality, advocacy, and care. I obtained my PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London in 2011, and have held postdoctoral posts at the Center for World Music, University of Hildesheim (2011-2014) and at the Grieg Academy, University of Bergen (2015-2017). With careful guidance from feminist, queer, and postcolonial perspectives, my work emerges from a pressing desire to question the present and to demand alternative futures.

I am currently researching LGBTQ+ ensembles in London, Rome and Warsaw, exploring the transformation of queer European citizenship and transnational activism in a post-Stonewall era. My monograph ‘Sámi Musical Performance and the Politics of Indigeneity in Northern Europe’ (2015) examined the role of Sámi popular music in shaping the politics of sovereignty, time, place, cultural heritage, and transnationalism. I was lead editor of the book ‘Music, Indigeneity, Digital Media’ (2017) which drew together the work of leading international scholars of Indigenous music. In addition, I have published articles, book chapters, and blogposts on Indigenous feminism, festivals, television music documentaries, transgressive pedagogies, Eurovision, and the politics of cultural repatriation.

I am co-founder and chair of the LGBTQ+ Music Study Group which promotes academic inquiry into issues of gender and sexuality, creates a support system for members of the LGBTQ+ community, and serves as a consulting body for wider issues of diversity and inclusion. Currently, I serve on the editorial board of the Journal of the Royal Musical Association (JRMA) and contribute to the work of the newly founded Equality, Diversity, Inclusion in Music Studies network (EDIMS). In 2015 I was programme committee member for the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) Annual Conference. Academic events I have co-organised and co-convened include the Grieg Research School (Trondheim, 2018), the Berlin ethnomusicology research group BEAM (2012-15), and the International Doctoral Workshop in Ethnomusicology at the Center for World Music (2012-14). I am often invited to speak at academic and public events, including as a keynote speaker at the 2021 BFE/RMA Research Students' Conference at the University of Cambridge.

In Trondheim, I have been nurturing engaged pedagogical practice, pursuing forms of social and artistic outreach, and developing ideas to transform institutional structures and ethics. I teach BA and MA courses on ethnomusicology; music, gender and sexuality; music in Europe; music and social justice; and Nordic music. I currently supervise two PhD candidates and several MA and BA students with projects on a range of topics especially those employing ethnographic method. At the Department of Music, I am leader of a working group which explores issues of inclusion, equality, and diversity (RILM). In addition, I am chair of the local queer choir, Kor Hen.

Scientific, academic and artistic work

Displaying a selection of activities. See all publications in the database

Journal publications

Books

  • Hilder, Thomas Richard; Stobart, Henry; Tan, Shzr Ee. (2017) Music, Indigeneity, Digital Media. University of Rochester Press. 2017. ISBN 978-1-58046-573-1.
  • Hilder, Thomas Richard. (2015) Sámi Musical Performance and the Politics of Indigeneity in Northern Europe. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2015. ISBN 978-0-8108-8895-1.

Part of book/report

  • Hilder, Thomas Richard. (2019) Sámi Musical Performance, Media and the Politics of Globalization: The Case of Sápmi Sessions. In the Balance: Indigeneity, Performance, Globalization.
  • Hilder, Thomas Richard. (2017) Music, Indigeneity, Digital Media. Music, Indigeneity, Digital Media.
  • Hilder, Thomas Richard. (2017) Nordic Sexual Exceptionalism and Indigenous Rights: Sámi Alternative Visions of Europe at the Eurovision Song Contest. Performing Sexual Identities: Nationalities on the Eurovision Stage.
  • Hilder, Thomas Richard. (2017) Sámi Festivals and Indigeneity. The Oxford Handbook of Popular Music in the Nordic Countries.
  • Hilder, Thomas Richard. (2017) Sámi Music. Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Volume XI Genres: Europe.
  • Hilder, Thomas Richard. (2017) The Politics of Virtuality: Sámi Cultural Simulation through Digital Musical Media. Music, Indigeneity, Digital Media.

Others

  • Hilder, Thomas Richard. (2021) Keynote Lecture: "Imagining Music Scholarship as Radical Care: Stories of Research, Pedagogy, and Activism". BFE/RMA Research Students’ Conference ; University of Cambridge. 2021-01-12 - 2021-01-14.
  • Eidsheim, Nina; Paine, Garth; Musiol, Hanna; Hilder, Thomas Richard; Rasika, Ajotikar; Bergsland, Andreas. (2020) Modalities of Listening, NTNU ARTEC Seminar Series Seminar. NTNU ARTEC Seminar Series . NTNU ARTEC; NTNU. 2020-09-21 - 2020-09-21.
  • Hilder, Thomas Richard. (2020) Choral Activism and Queer European Citizenship. Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference ; 2020-10-21 - 2020-10-31.
  • Schulman, Sarah; Raha, Nat; Hellesund, Tone; Branlat, Jennifer; Garcia Zarranz, Libe; Hilder, Thomas Richard; Musiol, Hanna. (2020) Pandemics, Archives, Justice: A Webinar with Sarah Schulman. Literature and Cultural History Research Group Seminar . NTNU ISL, TransLit & ILU, Gender Hub, LGBTQ+ Study Music Gr.; NTNU. 2020-11-11 - 2020-11-11.