College of Music

Rebecca Geoffroy-Schwinden brings the combined methodologies of history and anthropology to archival work on eighteenth-century music, particularly of the French Revolution. Rebecca’s concern for the politics of musical production seeks to move past the rhetoric of struggle toward a nuanced understanding of the relationships that animate musical labor and expression. Her interests include the professionalization of musicians in eighteenth-century Paris, the symbiotic relationship between French Enlightenment philosophies of music and everyday musical practices, and networks of amateur and professional musicians across Parisian social institutions. Rebecca’s recent work has investigated the music education and musical careers of women in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century France.

Rebecca’s research has been published in journals such as Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, and presented at national meetings including the American Musicological Society, the Society for Ethnomusicology, and the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and at international conferences in France and Portugal.

Rebecca’s secondary research in sound studies traverses audible history, digital humanities, and film music, and has been published in Provoke! Digital Sound Studies and Kinetophone.

Rebecca earned B.A.s with distinction and honors, phi beta kappa, in history and international studies from Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College. She received an A.M. and Ph.D. in musicology from Duke University. At Duke, her research was supported by multiple endowed fellowships and she was inducted as a member of the Society of Duke Fellows.