“An American Mission in the Near East 1889-1947: Reconfiguring Palestine Through Song”

Lecture by Rachel Beckles Willson, Royal Holloway, University of London

In my forthcoming book Orientalism and Musical Mission: Palestine and the West (Cambridge University Press, March 2013). I address three types of musical imperialism—religious, state, and neoliberal—through a study of European and American missions to Palestinians since 1840. The book also functions as a reflection on the legacy of Edward W. Said. My talk for UCLA will introduce material from a central chapter, exposing the musical work of an American mission in Palestine (active since 1889 and still continuing today). During the war-torn years of 1940-1947, the Quaker Friends Board of Missions supported a network of Palestinian choirs that promoted particular mappings and ethnic-musical visions of “Palestine” and the “Near East.” Today, archived traces of the choirs open a new window on a transitional period in Palestinian history and offer rich material through which to draw music into discussions of post-colonialism.

Rachel Beckles Willson is Professor of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London, and is currently Visiting Scholar at UCLA. Prior to the Palestinian project, she published widely on the politics of Hungarian music (including Ligeti, Kurtág, and Hungarian Music during the Cold War, Cambridge University Press, 2007).

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