Research

Jelena Novak is PhD candidate at Amsterdam School for Cultural analysis (ASCA). She studied Musicology, Art Theory and Theory of Media at the University of Belgrade where she took degree in musicology and completed her master thesis on opera in the age of media. She also attended School for History and Theory of Image and School for New theatre and Dance in Belgrade. Novak is founding director of CHINCH, Initiative for Research and Production of Contemporary Music, Live and Visual Arts and founding member of Walking Theory, a group for theoretical and artistic research.
Previously she worked as teaching assistant at the University of Arts in Belgrade, music editor at Radio Belgrade and libretist, dramaturg and manager of performances of music theatre.
Novak is member of the steering comitee of Society for Minimalist Music, research group member of Center for Studies of Sociology and Aestheticsof Music (CESEM, Univeristy of Lisbon) and member of editorial board of Nutida Musik(Stockholm) and The Musical Wave (Belgrade).

Dissertation project: "Singing Corporeality: Reinventing Vocalic Body in Postopera"

This study seeks to extend the cultural analysis of opera to the singing body. It will identify the (neglected) theme of mutual agency between the singing body and the voice as a significant site in which different ideologies are reflected. It will further suggest that this identification enables us to analyze how discourses of power, identity, knowledge, and desire are encoded in the singing body and also how this reveals the power of opera as an instrument for the critical analysis of society.

Relationships between voice and body are increasingly varied in recent operas where new media interventions upon operatic body-voice relations open possibilities for further expanding borders of the opera world, but also for what is considered body and voice in opera. I illustrate this in relation to six works: One (2002) by Michel van der Aa, Three Tales (1998-2002) by Steve Reich/Beryl Korot, La Belle et la Bête (1994) by Philip Glass/Jean Cocteau, Writing to Vermeer(1997-98) by Louis Andriessen/Peter Greenaway, Homeland (2007) by Laurie Anderson and La Commedia (2004-2008) by Louis Andriessen/Hal Hartley.

Supervisors:

Prof. dr. Rokus de Groot

Prof. dr. Maaike Bleeker

Research Interests

Musicology, theatre studies, critical theory, media theory, sociology of music and opera, performing arts theory, philosophy, aesthetics.