Prof Paul Watt
Elder Conservatorium of Music and School of Performing Arts
College of Creative Arts, Design and Humanities
Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.
Dr Paul Watt is Adjunct Professor of Musicology in the University of Adelaide. His research crosses a range of fields including nineteenth-century music, musical biography and criticism, popular music, intellectual history, and religious and literary studies. He is the author of three books, Ernest Newman: A Critical Biography (2017); The Regulation and Reform of Music Criticism in Nineteenth-Century England (2018) and Music, Morality and Social Reform in Nineteenth-Century Britain (2023). His articles have been published in leading journals including Music & Letters, the Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 19th-century Music and the Yale Journal of Music & Religion. He is co-editor of seven books including The Oxford Handbook of Music and Intellectual Culture in the Nineteenth Century (with Sarah Collins and Michael Allis, 2020) and the award-winning book, Joseph Holbrooke: Composer, Critic and Musical Patriot (with Anne-Marie Forbes, 2017).Paul’s research has been funded by fellowships from the Australian Research Council (Discovery Early Career Research Award, 2012–2015), and the European Commission’s Senior Fellowship Program (2016), which was undertaken in the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University. Paul has also held visiting fellowships in the Institute of Music Research, University of London (2009), the Humanities Research Centre, University of Texas, Austin (2010), the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, Durham University (2017), and the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University (2021). Paul's current book project is a cultural history of Gregorian chant in Australia, supported by a private philanthropic trust.
| Date | Position | Institution name |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 - ongoing | Adjunct Professor of Musicology | The University of Adelaide |
| 2021 - ongoing | Director | The Busking Project |
| Date | Institution name | Country | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | The University of Sydney | Australia | PhD |
| 1992 | Monash University | Australia | MA |
| 1990 | Australian Catholic University | Melbourne | BMus |
| Date | Title | Institution name | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Certificate of Academic Practice | Monash University | - |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Watt, P. (2025). Fanfare for a City: Music and the Urban Imagination in Haussmann's Paris. NINETEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC REVIEW, 22(3), 447-449. |
| 2025 | Watt, P., Case, L., Sen, S., Piatigorsky, A., Williams, S., & Johnson-Williams, E. (2025). Colloquy: Studies of Music in the British Empire: Past, Present, Future. Musicology Australia, 34 pages. |
| 2024 | Watt, P. (2024). How Did Nineteenth-Century Singers Care for Their Voice?. Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 54, 1-29. |
| 2024 | Watt, P., Green, B., Baker, A., Bennett, A., & Long, P. (2024). Australia’s hidden musicians: education and training in rural and regional areas. Music Education Research, 26(2), 127-139. |
| 2023 | Watt, P., & Oates, J. (2023). Colonial Mobility and the Cultural Replication of British Music: Granville Bantock's Australian Tour, 1938-1939. Music and Letters, 104(3), 443-477. Scopus1 WoS1 |
| 2023 | Watt, P., & Elkins, M. (2023). EDITORIAL. International Journal of Community Music, 16(2), 129-134. |
| 2022 | Watt, P. (2022). Representations of Jesus in Australian Poetry in the 1950s. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, 35(1), 24-38. |
| 2020 | Watt, P. (2020). Marie Lloyd (1870–1922) and biographical constructions of the nineteenth-century female superstar. Nineteenth Century Music, 44(2), 119-130. Scopus1 |
| 2019 | Watt, P. (2019). Buskers and busking in australia in the nineteenth century. Musicology Australia, 41(1), 22-35. Scopus8 WoS6 |
| 2019 | Watt, P. (2019). Jacques Barzun’s Berlioz and the Romantic Century (1950): A Musicological Brontosaurus?. Journal of Musicological Research, 38(3-4), 298-312. Scopus1 WoS2 |
| 2019 | Wiley, C., & Watt, P. (2019). Musical Biography in the Musicological Arena. Journal of Musicological Research, 38(3-4), 187-192. Scopus5 WoS7 |
| 2019 | Watt, P. (2019). The Function of Hymns in the Liturgical Life of Malcolm Quin's Positivist Church, 1878–1905. Yale Journal of Music and Religion, 5(1), 1-20. |
| 2018 | Watt, P. (2018). Street Music in the Nineteenth Century: Histories and Historiographies. Nineteenth Century Music Review, 15(1), 3-8. Scopus4 WoS2 |
| 2018 | Watt, P. (2018). Street Music in London in the Nineteenth Century: 'Evidence' from Charles Dickens, Charles Babbage and Lucy Broadwood. Nineteenth Century Music Review, 15(1), 9-22. Scopus8 WoS4 |
| 2017 | Watt, P. (2017). Musical & literary networks in the weekly critical Review, Paris, 1903-1904. Nineteenth Century Music Review, 14(1), 33-50. Scopus3 WoS1 |
| 2017 | Watt, P. (2017). Music criticism in nineteenth-century England: How did it become a profession?. Musicologica Brunensia, 52(1), 117-126. |
| 2017 | Watt, P., & Collins, S. (2017). Critical networks. Nineteenth Century Music Review, 14(1), 3-8. Scopus1 |
| 2016 | Watt, P. (2016). Editorial—Street Music: Ethnography, Performance, Theory. Journal of Musicological Research, 35(2), 69-71. Scopus5 WoS5 |
| 2014 | Watt, P., & Rabinovici, A. (2014). Alexandra Palace: Music, leisure, and the cultivation of 'higher civilization' in the late nineteenth century. Music and Letters, 95(2), 183-212. Scopus2 WoS2 |
| 2014 | Watt, P. (2014). Music, lyrics and cultural tropes in Australian popular songs of the first world war: Two case studies. Musicology Australia, 36(1), 90-105. Scopus2 WoS1 |
| 2014 | Watt, P. (2014). Artistic crosscurrents: Critical vocabularies of literature, painting, architecture and music. Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, 19(1), 1-4. |
| 2013 | Watt, P. (2013). Ernest Newman's Draft of a Berlioz Biography (1899) and its Appropriation of Emile Hennequin's Style Theory. Nineteenth Century Music Review, 10(1), 151-168. |
| 2009 | Watt, P. (2009). A ‘Gigantic and Popular Place of Entertainment’: Granville Bantock and Music-Making at the New Brighton Tower in the Late 1890s. Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 42, 109-164. |
| 2007 | Watt, P. (2007). The catalogue of Ernest Newman’s library: revelations about his intellectual life in the 1890s’gue of Ernest Newman’s library. Script and Print: bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, 31(2), 81-103. |
| 2006 | Watt, P. (2006). Ernest Newman’s The Man Liszt of 1934: reading its freethought agenda. Context: Journal of Music Research, 31, 193-205. |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2024 | Macarthur, S., Szuster, J., & Watt, P. (2024). Cultures of Work, the Neoliberal Environment and Music in Higher Education (Vol. Part F2497). S. Macarthur, J. Szuster, & P. Watt (Eds.), Cham: Switzerland: Palgrave. DOI Scopus3 |
| 2024 | Allis, M., & Watt, P. (2024). The Reminiscences and Selected Criticism of Herbert Thompson. |
| 2023 | Watt, P. (2023). Music, Morality and Social Reform in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Boydell & Brewer. |
| 2022 | Spedding, P., Watt, P., Cray, E., Gregory, D., & Scott, D. B. (2022). Bawdy songbooks of the romantic period. DOI |
| 2020 | Watt, P., Collins, S., & Allis, M. (2020). The oxford handbook of music and intellectual culture in the nineteenth century. P. Watt, S. Collins, & M. Allis (Eds.), Oxford University Press. DOI Scopus5 |
| 2020 | Allis, M., & Watt, P. (2020). The Symphonic Poem in Britain, 1850-1950. Boydell & Brewer. |
| 2018 | Watt, P. (2018). The Regulation and Reform of Music Criticism in Nineteenth-Century England. Routledge. |
| 2017 | Watt, P. (2017). Ernest Newman A Critical Biography. Boydell & Brewer. |
| 2017 | Watt, P., Scott, D. B., & Spedding, P. (2017). Cheap print and popular song in the nineteenth century: A cultural history of the songster. P. Watt, D. B. Scott, & P. Spedding (Eds.), Cambridge University Press. DOI Scopus5 |
| 2015 | Watt, P., & Forbes, A. M. (2015). Joseph Holbrooke: Composer, Critic, and Musical Patriot. Rowman & Littlefield. Scopus1 |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2024 | Szuster, J., & Watt, P. (2024). The Practice-led PhD in Music: Where is it Headed?. In S. Macarthur, J. Szuster, & P. Watt (Eds.), Cultures of Work, the Neoliberal Environment and Music in Higher Education (Vol. Part F2497, 1 ed., pp. 183-202). Cham: Switzerland: Palgrave. DOI Scopus1 |
| 2024 | Macarthur, S., Szuster, J., & Watt, P. (2024). Cultures of Work, the Neoliberal Environment, and Music in Higher Education. In S. Macarthur, J. Szuster, & P. Watt (Eds.), Cultures of Work, the Neoliberal Environment and Music in Higher Education (pp. 1-14). Cham: Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. |
| 2021 | Watt, P. (2021). Music. In M. Ruse, & S. Bullivant (Eds.), The Cambridge History of Atheism (pp. 703-719). Cambridge University Press. |
| 2020 | Watt, P. (2020). The Symphonic Poem and British Music Criticism. In M. Allis, & P. Watt (Eds.), The Symphonic Poem in Britain, 1850-1950 (pp. 55). Woodbridge: The Boydell Press. |
| 2020 | Watt, P. (2020). The Symphonic Poem and British Music Criticism. In M. Allis, & P. Watt (Eds.), The Symphonic Poem in Britain, 1850-1950 (pp. 55). Woodbridge: The Boydell Press. |
| 2020 | Spedding, P., & Watt, P. (2020). Towards a history and performance context of a forgotten repertory. In P. Spedding, & P. Watt (Eds.), Bawdy Songbooks of the Romantic Period, Volume 1 (pp. xv-xxv). London: Routledge. |
| 2020 | Spedding, P., & Watt, P. (2020). Towards a history and performance context of a forgotten repertory. In P. Spedding, & P. Watt (Eds.), Bawdy Songbooks of the Romantic Period, Volume 1 (pp. xv-xxv). London: Routledge. |
| 2020 | Watt, P., Collins, S., & Allis, M. (2020). Introduction: Music and intellectual culture in the nineteenth century. In Unknown Book (pp. 1-11). Scopus1 |
| 2020 | Watt, P. (2020). Street performers and street culture. In Routledge Handbook of Street Culture (pp. 38-47). Scopus7 |
| 2020 | Watt, P. (2020). Newspapers, little magazines, and anthologies. In P. Watt, S. Collins, & M. Allis (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Music and Intellectual Culture in the Nineteenth Century (pp. 191-208). Oxford University Press. DOI Scopus1 |
| 2019 | Watt, P. (2019). British music criticism, 1890-1945. In Cambridge History of Music Criticism (pp. 371-391). Cambridge University Press. DOI Scopus4 |
| 2018 | Watt, P. (2018). The rise of the professional music critic in nineteenth-century England. In R. Golding (Ed.), Music Profession in Britain 1780 1920 New Perspectives on Status and Identity (pp. 110-127). Routledge. DOI Scopus3 |
| 2018 | Watt, P. (2018). Ernest Newman and the promise of method in criticism, history and biography at the fin de siècle. In J. Dibble, & J. Horton (Eds.), British Musical Criticism and Intellectual Thought, 1850-1950 (pp. 84-101). Woodbridge: The Boydell Press. |
| 2017 | Watt, P. (2017). The prefaces to songsters: The law, aesthetics, performers and their reputations. In P. Watt, D. B. Scott, & P. Spedding (Eds.), Cheap Print and Popular Song in the Nineteenth Century: A Cultural History of the Songster (pp. 32-46). United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. DOI |
| 2017 | Watt, P., Scott, D. B., & Spedding, P. (2017). The nineteenth-century songster: Recovering a lost musical artefact. In Cheap Print and Popular Song in the Nineteenth Century A Cultural History of the Songster (pp. 1-8). Cambridge University Press. DOI Scopus5 |
| 2014 | Watt, P., & Forbes, A. -M. (2014). Situating Holbrooke in British musical history. In P. Watt, & A. -M. Forbes (Eds.), Joseph Holbrooke Composer, Critic, and Musical Patriot (pp. 1-8). New York: Rowman & Littlefield. |
| 2014 | Watt, P., & Forbes, A. -M. (2014). Situating Holbrooke in British musical history. In P. Watt, & A. -M. Forbes (Eds.), Joseph Holbrooke Composer, Critic, and Musical Patriot (pp. 1-8). New York: Rowman & Littlefield. |
| 2014 | Watt, P. (2014). A “Nationalist in art”: Holbrooke’s Contemporary British Composers (1925). In P. Watt, & A. -M. Forbes (Eds.), Joseph Holbrooke Composer, Critic, and Musical Patriot (pp. 153-174). New York: Rowman & Littlefield. |
| 2014 | Watt, P. (2014). A “Nationalist in art”: Holbrooke’s Contemporary British Composers (1925). In P. Watt, & A. -M. Forbes (Eds.), Joseph Holbrooke Composer, Critic, and Musical Patriot (pp. 153-174). New York: Rowman & Littlefield. |
| 2014 | Watt, P. (2014). Critics. In H. Greenwald (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Opera (pp. 881-898). New York: Oxford University Press. |
Professor Paul Watt has held numerous research grants including an ARC DECRA (2012–2015) and a European Commission Program 7 Senior Research Fellowship in the Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University (2017).
He has also held the following competitive fellowships:
2021 Humanities Research Centre Research Fellow, Australian National University, July–October
2017 European Commission Seventh Program Senior Research Fellow, Durham University, January and February
2016 Inaugural International Research Fellow, Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies, Durham University, January and February
2015 Visiting Research Fellow, University of Huddersfield (until 2019)
2010 Alfred A. Knopf and Blanche W. Knopf Fellowship, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, 22–29 July
2009 Visiting Fellow, Institute of Musical Research, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, June–July
| Date | Role | Research Topic | Program | Degree Type | Student Load | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Co-Supervisor | Freddie Mercury, Music and Identity: An Agential Realist Perspective | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Part Time | Miss April Rose Mitchell |
| 2022 | Co-Supervisor | Freddie Mercury, Music and Identity: An Agential Realist Perspective | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Part Time | Miss April Rose Mitchell |
| Date | Institution | Department | Organisation Type | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 - ongoing | The Busking Project | Research | Cultural or historical | Germany |
| Date | Role | Editorial Board Name | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 - 2025 | Editor | Advances in Nineteenth Century Studies | Taylor & Frances | United Kingdom |
| 2023 - ongoing | Board Member | Musicology Australia | Taylor & Francis | Australia |
| 2023 - ongoing | Board Member | Music and Migration: Sounds of Movement | Lexington Books | United States |
| 2020 - ongoing | Board Member | Journal of Music Research Online | The University of Adelaide | Australia |
| 2019 - ongoing | Board Member | Global Nineteenth Century Studies | Global Nineteenth Century Studies Association | United Kingdom |
| 2019 - ongoing | Board Member | Studies in British Music Cultures | Clemson University Press | United States |
| 2017 - ongoing | Associate Editor | Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle | Royal Musical Association | United Kingdom |
| Date | Office Name | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 - ongoing | Editorial Manager, Journal of Religious History | University of Divinity | Australia |
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