Lauren Eldridge Stewart

Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology
Performing Arts Department (Affiliate)
Department of African and African-American Studies (Affiliate)

(On sabbatical Fall '23)


PhD, University of Chicago
AM, University of Chicago
BA, Spelman College
research interests:
  • pedagogy
  • African diasporic music
  • the Caribbean
  • Haiti
  • art economies
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     (On sabbatical '22-'23)

    Lauren Eldridge Stewart's research interests include the cultural uses of classical music, folklore, and material culture across the African diaspora. She is currently writing a book about the influence of global aid on the contemporary practice of classical music in Haiti. 

    She has taught in the music departments of the University of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, and Spelman College, and performed Haitian piano repertoire both in Haiti and across the U.S. 

    Lauren’s work has been extensively supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. She has received the Howard Mayer Brown Fellowship from the American Musicological Society, the joint dissertation fellowship from UChicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture and Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, and the Social Science Research Council’s MMUF Dissertation Completion Fellowship. 

    Selected Publications

    "From the Islands to the Motherland: Motivic Traveling in Contemporary Gospel Music" in Yale Journal of Music and Religion 8:1 (2022)
    "Singing on Solid Ground: Music Education in Post-Earthquake Haiti" in Twentieth-Century Music 19:2 (2022)
    "Music as Mission: Hierarchies of Sound and Difference" in Women & Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture (2019)
    "Respectable Sound: Music Education as Social Movement" in Music and Politics 12:2 (2018)

    Published reviews:

    Journal of the Society for American Music
    The Common Reader
    the world of music (new series)
    Folklore
    Journal of Folklore Research
    The Journal of Haitian Studies
    CBMR Digest
    Callaloo