- Instructor, Faculty of Extension's Department of Communications and Design, University of Alberta
Dr. Shumaila Hemani, Ph.D. in Music and M.A. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Alberta, is an Alberta-based ethnomusicologist, Sufi singer-songwriter, and acousmatic composer. She is the former Music Faculty for the Semester at Sea (SAS) Spring 2020 Voyage and a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship nominee strongly endorsed by Memorial University.
Mentored by Prof. Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, Hemani’s research on the Sufi sounds of the Shah jo Raag examines the intersections of religion, governance, and social justice at Muslim shrines in Sindh, Pakistan. Her forthcoming monograph, Cultural Rights of Sufi Performers in South Asia, will be published in Routledge’s Islam and Human Rights series.
She is the author of Writing in the Wound: Acculturation, Trauma, and Music (2025), a memoir exploring creative resilience, feminist resistance, and spiritual renewal through sound. Her scholarship on Pakistani women’s music appears in Women and Islamic Cultures (Brill, 2017).
Experience
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–presentInstructor, University of Alberta
Education
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2019University of Alberta , PhD/Music
Honours
Women in Music Canada Honors Roll (2023), Keynote (Map the Systems Canada) (2024), the First Prize at the Society for Ethnomusicology Conference (2017), the Cultural Diversity Award (2015) Laura Bassi Scholarship (2018 and 2021), the State of Kuwait Award in Islamic Studies (2015), Frank Henderson Prize in the study of Women and Religion (2017), Maud Karpeles International travel award (2015), the Institute of Ismaili Studies graduate and doctoral award (2006-09/2012-17),
Contact Shumaila for
- General
- Media request
- Speaking request
- Consulting / Advising
- Research collaboration
- Research supervision
