History Professor Named Senior Research Associate at Cambridge

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Rembrandt Wolpert

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The Master and the Governing Body of Peterhouse at the University of Cambridge have named Rembrandt Wolpert a senior research associate for the 2014-15 academic year. Wolpert, professor of history and director of the center for the study of early Asian and Middle Eastern musics in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, was also elected as a Visiting Fellow at Peterhouse for the 2015 Lent term.

Peterhouse, founded in 1284 by Hugo de Balsham, the Bishop of Ely, is the oldest of the Cambridge colleges. Peterhouse has become known for its intellectual community, and its graduates have gone on to renown in fields from poetry to politics. Petreans include five Nobel Prize winners as well as leaders of British governmental, religious and judicial institutions.

“Professor Wolpert will represent the University of Arkansas at one of Cambridge’s most prestigious colleges,” said Todd Shields, dean of Fulbright College. “Peterhouse has long been recognized as a leading college in Cambridge University. This is a great honor for the university, Fulbright College and professor Wolpert.”

While at Peterhouse, Wolpert will work on Essentials for Biwa, a book which encompasses a lifetime of scholarly publications and research that will bring him back to his original research as a doctoral student at Cambridge. The current project draws from his expertise in the music and culture of Tang China and his training as a computer scientist.

His scholarship on Tang music includes nearly thirty chapters, articles and essays in English, German and Chinese. He has given invited lectures at the Sorbonne in Paris, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and the University of Hong Kong to name a few. 

Wolpert’s work has appeared on the BBC Radio 3 and Radio Free Berlin. He has also, co-produced documentary films and prepared original music for recordings of Tang music by international recording artists Wu Man, the Kronos Quartet and Yo-Yo Ma.

Wolpert joined the University of Arkansas faculty in 2000. He earned a Master of Arts in sinology from the Ludwig-Maximilians Universitaet Muenchen, Germany, a Doctorate from Jesus College, University of Cambridge, and a Master of Science in computer science from the University of Otago, New Zealand.

In addition to his appointments at the University of Arkansas and Peterhouse, Wolpert has also held research and teaching positions on the faculties of music and Oriental studies at the University of Cambridge, at the Institute of Sinology at the Julius-Maximilian's Universitaet Wuerzburg in Germany, at the Institute for Research in Humanities of Kyoto University in Japan and in social anthropology at the Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He also served as professor ordinarius in systematic musicology and ethnomusicology in the Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands.