Faculty

Dr. Maria Paula Survilla
Associate Professor of Music
Office:  FAC 217
Phone: (319) 352-8343

Dr. Maria Paula Survilla is Associate Professor of Music at Wartburg College where she coordinates the Music History core courses for the program. She is an ethnomusicologist specializing in the music of Belarus. Her research interests include the role of contemporary music (urban rock and popular genres as well as rural ritual music) in the construction of personal and national identities in post-Soviet Belarus. She began fieldwork in Eastern Europe in 1989 and was funded as a Fulbright-Hayes scholar in 1993. She presents her research throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. Her book, Of Mermaids and Rock Singers: Placing the Self and Constructing the Nation Through Belarusan Contemporary Music was published by Routledge (Taylor and Francis Group) in 2002. Her article, "Ordinary Words: Sound, Music, and Meaning in Belarusan-Language Rock Music" appears in the book Global Pop, Local Talk: Language Choice in Popular Music Throughout the World (2003). In addition, she contributed the articles “Miensk” and “Belarus” to the Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Oxford, 2005). Dr. Survilla was invited to speak at the Harvard Symposium, The Arts, National Identity And Politics In Belarus (Harvard University, October 13-16, 2005) where she presented “Back in the B.S.S.R.” or “And the Beat Goes On”: Adaptations in Sound and Vision in the Belarusan Rock Movement 1989-2005.” She has also published articles on music and identity amongst the Belarusan Diaspora in central Canada and the eastern United States. She actively contributes to discourses in ethnomusicology and Slavic Studies (see link).

As an ethnomusicologist, Dr. Survilla explores music/culture in various course offerings. Most recently, she combined her interests in the May Term travel course that took students across southern France and northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. The mixture of medieval history, the anthropology of ritual, music and cognition, and the phenomenon of spiritual tourism offered a multi-faceted look at the power of the pilgrimage in the past as well as for contemporary pilgrims. The class will be offered again in 2008.

Dr. Survilla also serves as the coordinator for Wartburg College’s diversity curriculum as defined by the Essential Education plan’s IS201 sophomore-level multi-disciplinary classes “Living in a Diverse World” and “Diversity Across the Curriculum (DAC)” course offerings (see Wartburg College catalogue).

She published Presidential Reports for Naviny: The Newsletter of North American Association for Belarusian Studies (Fall 2006; Spring 2007). Topics included The Mediation of Belarusian Identity; Student Engagement in Belarusian Culture and Politics on a Midwestern Campus.

She served as session chair for Belarusian Identity in Lukashenka's Belarus at the
Harriman Institute, Columbia University ASN (The Association for the Study of Nationalities) 2007 World Convention. She also lectured on Power, Meaning, and Protest through Belarusian Rock and Popular Culture, at Iowa State University in January 2007. The lecture was sponsored by World Languages and Cultures, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Miller Lectures Fund, Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies Program, Russian, Eurasian, East European Club, and Committee on Lectures.

Dr. Survilla serves as Co-Executive Director of the Center for Belarusian Studies (Southwestern College, Kansas). This position involves intellectual work, conference preparation, selection of international scholars, grant writing, and public relations.

She is also current President of the North American Association for Belarusian Studies; Consulted by graduate students engaged in work in Belarus to establish contacts for their research as part of my work for NAABS. She served as Vice-President from 2003-2005.

Dr. Survilla appeared in news reports featuring Belarus and Wartburg students: Radio Svaboda (Radio Liberty) Prague; Belarus (North American newspaper for the Belarusian Diaspora.

Travel for Dr. Survilla during her sabbatical included:
- New York: ASN Conference and research amongst Belarusian Diaspora.
- Kansas; Board Meeting of the CBS, March 8, 2007
- Prague: April 28-May 10 (research on the role of music in Radio Liberty broadcasting)
- Vilnius, Lithuania: May 6-9 - interview of Belarusian scholars for teaching terms in the United States