Erica Catherine Fedor, Ph.D. 2021

Advisor: Mark Katz

Dissertation Title: Sounding Statecraft: U.S. Cultural Diplomacy Programs in the Twenty-First Century

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Dissertation Abstract:

My dissertation examines the complex set of objectives, principles, and motivations that animate modern U.S. cultural diplomacy, with a focus on two performing arts initiatives: OneBeat (established 2012) and Next Level (established 2013). U.S. government–sponsored arts programs harbor an essential tension: they depend on collaboration and consensus among a diverse group of stakeholders but operate within an inescapably asymmetrical power structure. A key strategy for gaining consensus is to promote a sense of a shared agenda that depoliticizes diplomacy and embraces a universalist view of art and culture. I argue that the act of distancing cultural diplomacy from politics creates gaps between rhetoric and action, between how programs are theorized and described in promotional materials versus how they are carried out. State Department employees, program staff, and participating artists often deemphasize cultural diplomacy’s political underpinnings or describe cultural diplomacy as being separate from politics entirely. For instance, artists may be invested in separating cultural diplomacy from politics in order to justify their participation, focusing instead on personal and professional objectives and opportunities. State Department employees, meanwhile, may celebrate the supposedly transcendental qualities of music rather than focus on cultural diplomacy as a way to secure U.S. influence on the world stage or act as a precursor to hard diplomacy.

Defining U.S. cultural diplomacy as a multi-directional practice rather than a strictly top-down pursuit, I draw upon insights from participating artists, U.S. State Department staff, and employees at the NGOs that administer these programs. Using an interdisciplinary framework that connects ethnomusicology, anthropology, and the study of diplomacy, I illuminate the social, technological, and musical networks through which diplomacy and international exchange take place. By highlighting the individual agency of participants and program administrators, the often-conflicting ideologies, subjectivities, and values brought to spaces of cross-cultural encounter take center stage. Building on scholarship that examines 20th-century cultural diplomacy programs, my study of 21st-century programming offers new perspectives on American exceptionalism, negotiations of power on the world stage, and how the players in today’s cultural diplomacy programs conceptualize value, labor, and what it means to represent one’s country as a cultural ambassador.

Dr. Fedor currently teaches in the School of Music at UNC School of the Arts (UNCSA). Fedor has taught courses in music history and culture, world music, and music theory. In 2023, she received a Teaching Innovation Grant from UNCSA to develop innovative, inclusive instructional approaches to teaching academic music subjects in high school and college classroom context. Outside of UNCSA, Fedor enjoys working with students as a private piano instructor and writing coach, remaining active as a cellist and pianist, and exploring Winston-Salem.