Florian Carl is an Associate Professor in the Department of Music and Dance at the University of Cape Coast, where he teaches courses in ethnomusicology, popular music, qualitative and ethnographic research, cultural theory, music history, and music and media technology. He serves on various university boards and committees and was Head of the Department of Music and Dance from 2014 to 2019. He is currently co-director of the international DAAD-funded Graduate School Performing Sustainability: Cultures and Development in West Africa, a Ghanaian-Nigerian-German collaborative training network for PhD and Master's students in the areas of arts, culture, and sustainability (https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/sustainability/). From 2021 to 2023, Florian is a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and a visiting professor at the University of Oldenburg, Germany.
Florian studied Musicology, African Studies, and Cultural Anthropology in Cologne (Germany) and Chicago (USA) and received his PhD in 2007 from the University of Music, Drama and Media in Hanover, Germany. His research interests range from popular music, public sound culture, music and migration, to the role of music, sound, and listening in the African-European colonial and postcolonial encounter. Currently, Florian pursues two larger research projects: One focuses on music, digital media, and Christian popular culture in Ghana; the second project investigates the role of culturally and technologically mediated listening practices in the history of the Bremen Mission (Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft) in West Africa from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century.
