benjamin teitelbaum
Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology
Musicology

Benjamin R. Teitelbaum is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology and International Affairs. He earned a doctorate from Brown University and a Bachelor of Music degree in nyckelharpa performance from Bethany College. He has previously served as Instructor and Head of Nordic Studies, also at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Visiting Scholar at Karlstad University, Sweden and the Institute for Social Sciences, History and Philosophy at the University of Campinas, Brazil.  

Teitelbaum’s interests include music and politics, reactionary ideology and aesthetics, Western esotericism, political theology, research ethics and Scandinavian traditional music and folklore. His first book, “Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism” (Oxford University Press, 2017), was named in his 2020 Provost’s Faculty Achievement Award and received an honorable mention from the International Studies Association. His second book, “War for Eternity: The Return of Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right” (Penguin Press, 2020), was translated into multiple languages and called “insightful and immersive” by The Sunday Times, “indispensable” by Glenn Greenwald and a “must read" by Caetano Veloso, and was named a Financial Times editor’s pick and a book of the year by CapX and Estadão.  

Teitelbaum has received awards from the Joukowsky Family Foundation, the Institute for the Study of Radical Movements and the Society of Ethnomusicology; and grants from the American Scandinavian Foundation, the Center for Multiculturalism Studies and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). In 2023, he received the BFA Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarly and Creative Work. 

Teitelbaum has published articles in the journals Ethnomusicology, Scandinavian Studies, Arkiv, Current Anthropology, Patterns of Prejudice, and Music Research Annual and American Music in addition to edited volume chapters. His writing has appeared in major European and American media outlets in addition to scholarly venues. He has authored opinion pieces and features in The New York Times, Foreign Policy, the Los Angeles Review of Books, UnHerd, The Wall Street Journal, The New Statesman, The Daily Beast, The Nation and The Atlantic and is interviewed frequently in English, Scandinavian and Lusophone media.

Musicology