Hunter College Music Department is thrilled to welcome Dr. Farzad Amoozegar as Assistant Professor in Ethnomusicology at Hunter College! Dr. Amoozegar is a highly accomplished ethnomusicologist, medical anthropologist, and performer of the tār and setār. His current research examines the relationship between Islamic sung prayers and topics of suffering in warfare. His broad-ranging expertise will provide valuable and stimulating learning experiences for Hunter music students and beyond. Welcome, Dr. Amoozegar!
Farzad Amoozegar is an ethnomusicologist and a medical anthropologist interested in how the experiences of listening to and performing Islamic sung prayers relate to death, dying and grief; ethics of care; and warfare, violence and militarism. His research extends the conversation concerning listening and performing into an intersubjective and ethical relationship between the living and the dead by inquiring into ways in which paraplegic Iranian veterans of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War (ethnomusicology) and Syrian refugee children (anthropology) process violence and suffering and how they cope with the loss of family members or close friends. His current book, Being with the Dead: Islamic Sung Prayer, Listening and Ethical Praxis (University of Chicago Press), is an ethnographic study of four paraplegic Iranian veterans of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. It explores how listening to monājāt (Islamic sung prayers) centers on the particularity of the sound quality known for its mystical experience and spiritual longing.
His interest in listening, performance, phenomenology, ethics and Islamic philosophy were developed during his university education in Canada and the United States, as well as through his extensive musical training which began during his childhood in Iran. He spent his formative years in Iran playing the tār and setār before immigrating to Canada at the age of twelve. He continued his musical studies in both the United States and Iran under master musicians, Mohammad-Rezā Lotfī, Hooshang Zarif, and Ata-Allāh Jankouk. He has performed in diverse venues across North America, Europe and the Middle East.
His current book project, Being with the Dead: Islamic Sung Prayer, Listening and Ethical Praxis (University of Chicago Press), is an ethnographic study of four paraplegic Iranian veterans of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. It explores how listening to monājāt (Islamic sung prayers) centers on the particularity of the sound quality known for its mystical experience and spiritual longing.
Dr. Farzad has two PhDs (yes!) in Medical Anthropology and Ethnomusicology from The University of California, Los Angles, an M.A. Anthropology and M.A. in Musicology from The University of British Columbia. He did his B.A. at the University of Toronto and pursed further studies in performance in his Iran.
For further information about Farzad, please visit www.farzadamoozegar.com.
