Dr. Barbara Babic

Dr. Barbara Babic

Research Fellow

Neuere Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum
Beethovenstraße 15, Room 3.203
04107 Leipzig

Phone: +49 341 97-37066

Abstract

Barbara Babić earned degrees in musicology at the University of Trento (B.A.), Milan (M.A.), and Vienna (Ph.D.). Her research examines the mobility of European music theatre throughout the nineteenth century, by focusing especially on the Parisian and Viennese boulevard stage (melodrama, parody, operetta), on Italian opera (especially Rossini), and on theatrical life in Habsburg Southeastern Europe. She received grants from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Austrian Exchange Service (OeAD), and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). Prior to joining the Transopera team in Leipzig, Barbara was also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Vienna as well as a Visting Research Fellow at the Centre Georg Simmel at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

Professional career

  • since 12/2021
    Postdoctoral Fellow, ERC-Advanced Grant "Opera and the Politics of Empire in Habsburg Europe, 1815–1914" Department of History, University of Leipzig
  • 10/2020 - 11/2021
    Postdoctoral Fellow (substitute) Department of Musicology, University of Vienna
  • 03/2020 - 02/2021
    Visiting Fellow at Centre Georg Simmel, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris Funding: ÖAW-Post-Doc-Track-Grant, Austrian Academy of Sciences
  • 02/2015 - 06/2018
    PhD in Musicology (with honors), Doctoral Fellow at Department of Musicology, University of Vienna Funding: ÖAW-DOC-Grant, Austrian Academy of Sciences
  • 05/2015 - 04/2016
    Research Stay in Munich and Paris Funding: OeAD-Marietta Blau Grant

Cultural History in Habsburg Southeastern Europe


19th-century Popular Music Theatre (melodrama, parody, operetta)


Opera and Media (especially TV-opera)


Cultural Transfer (German speaking area-France-Italy)


Material and Visual Culture (especially Costume and Fashion Studies)


  • Babic, B.
    Storie bibliche ‘à grand spectacle’. Una lettura di La Bibbia all’opera di Franco Piperno
    Bollettino del Centro Rossiniano di Studi . 2020. pp. 161–182.
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  • Babic, B.
    Between the Sacred and the Profane: French Biblical Melodrama in Vienna c. 1800
    In: Hicks, J.; Hambridge, K. (Eds.)
    The Melodramatic Moment: Music and Theatrical Culture, 1790‒1820. Chicago: Chicago University Press. 2018. pp. 59–78.
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  • Babic, B.
    Un tableau d'effroi. L'atelier du Déluge de Jean-Baptiste-Augustin Hapdé
    La Fabrique du paysage. Revue d'Histoire du Théâtre . 2023. pp. 37–50.
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  • Babic, B.; Körner, A.; Hambridge, K.; Ferrara degli Uberti, C.; Toelle, J.; De Arcangelis, A.
    Music in the Present Tense. A Round Table on Emanuele Senici’s New Book
    Bollettino del Centro Rossiniano di Studi. 2022. pp. 69–93.
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more publications

  • Interwoven: Material Culture, Fashion, and History

    Department of History, Leipzig University (spring term 2022/23)

  • Budapest – Zagreb – Wien at the fin-de-siècle

    Department of History, Leipzig University (fall term 2022/23)

  • Habsburg Southeastern Europe, 1797‒1848/49

    Department of History, Leipzig University (spring term 2022)

  • Berlin in the 1920s: Music, Theatre, Media

    Department of Musicology, University of Vienna (fall term 2021/22)

  • Opera on Screen

    Department of Musicology, University of Vienna (fall term 2021/22)