Kira Álvarez works broadly at the intersection of history, music, politics, religion, and science and technology. Her current research project demonstrates how non-state cultural institutions and private actors help strengthen and sustain transnational relations. This project is based on extensive research in thirty historical, music, and political archives across three continents.

Kira has taught, presented, and published her research throughout the United States and the EU. She received fully funded degrees from Stanford University (M.A., M.A.), Hebrew University of Jerusalem (M.A.), and Swarthmore College (B.A.).

Education:

Doctoral Candidate, Graduate School of North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin

Stanford University, M.A., History; M.A., Musicology

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, M. A., Religious History

      Passed the university Hebrew language proficiency exam

 Swarthmore College, B.A., Religion and History

      Additional B.A. coursework in religion and history at the University of        

      Pennsylvania

Summer Semester 2019: "The American Jewish Experience in the Twentieth Century"

Summer Semester 2018: "The Politics of Music: The Twentieth-Century Classical Music World in the United States"

Research Interests: 

• Immigration and Migration
•  Diplomacy
•  Religion
•  Cultural History
•  Science, Technology and Society

Dissertation Project:

"Migrant Capital and Social Networks: The Western Classical Music World
between the U.S. and Mandate Palestine/Israel, 1920s-1960s"

Culture as Soft Power: Cultural Relations, Intellectual Cooperation and Cultural Diplomacy. Eds.  Diana Roig-Sanz and Elisabet Carbó-Catalan (forthcoming, De Gruyter).

The Routledge Companion to Women and Musical Leadership: The Nineteenth Century and Beyond. Eds. Laura Hamer and Helen Julia Minors (forthcoming, Routledge).

“Mit sanfter Macht zur Versöhnung,” Musik öffnet Welten: Zur Gestaltung internationaler Beziehungen. Eds. Ronald Grätz and Christian Höppner. Göttingen: Steidel, 2019, 37-43.

Media

taz,  Jahrestag der Befreiung des KZ Dachau: Gedenken schützt Demokratie,  29.04.2021

Deutschlandradio Kultur, Eine Faust gegen den Antisemitismus: Bronislaw Huberman, Geigenvirtuose und Gründer des Palestine Symphony Orchestra, Kira Alvarez, 18.06.2017