A new installment of the IMS’s provocative online publication is out! This contribution is part of the issue “Musicology’s Monumental Turns” (vol. 10, no. 1, 2026), which throughout the summer, will explore the global, auditory, and literary turns in the study of music and sound.

We Are All Global Musicologists Now!
Why global musicology? Most musicologists think we need global musicology because music is global. Yes, music is global. It is everywhere and on the move. Music has always been a peripatetic object, knitted together from criss-crossing boundaries, leaving a meandering trail of encounters across the soundscapes of time. Global musicology reflects this condition as its theme. But the theme is not the reason for global musicology. After all, music has been global for hundreds of years. So the question is: Why global musicology now?