B.M., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara 

Denise Gill-Gürtan is an ethnomusicologist whose work focuses on the musical and cultural practices of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, with particular attention to the relationship between music and affect/emotion, gender, spirituality, memory and historical consciousness, and social justice.  Her current research explores the consequences of situating melancholy as a central affective practice and discourse in contemporary Turkish musicians’ lives.  Professor Gill-Gürtan has conducted over thirty months of ethnographic research in Turkey (2003-2009, Fulbright and other grants).  She is a winner of the Ki Mantle Hood Award from the Society of Ethnomusicology (2007), and a Sakip Sabancı International Research Award (2008).  Before joining the faculty at Beloit College, Professor Gill-Gürtan taught at the College of William and Mary, where she also served as guest director of the College of William and Mary Middle Eastern Music Ensemble.

At Beloit College, Professor Gill-Gürtan offers classes on music, gender, and sexuality, world popular musics, music and Islam, Muslim media practices, music and healing, and comparative music theory.  She also directs the Beloit College Old-Time Music Ensemble.  While at UCSB, Professor Gill-Gürtan received an Outstanding Teaching Award from the Academic Senate (2010), an Excellence in Teaching Award from the Graduate Students Association (2007), and served as co-coordinator for the transdisciplinary Feminist Pedagogy Series.

As a kanun (Middle Eastern trapezoidal zither) player committed to the study of Ottoman-Turkish Classical, Islamic, and Mevlevi music traditions, Professor Gill-Gürtan has performed on radio and television programs and in concert halls in Turkey, the United States, and for the European Union in Brussels. 

Email: gillgurtand@beloit.edu