Luis

Who am I?

I was born and grew up in Puebla, a city located in east-central Mexico. I have a background in ethnomusicology (M.A. National University of Mexico, UNAM) and philosophy of science (PhD, UNAM). During my doctoral studies, I was a visiting student at the Centre for Music and Science at the University of Cambridge (January-June 2016) and a writing-up fellow at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (KLI) in Klosterneuburg, near Vienna (March-September 2018). After completing my PhD, I conducted a research stay at the Institute of Musicology of the University of Vienna (June-December 2020), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the KLI (January 2021-March 2023) where I stayed as a guest researcher until March 2024. Additionally, from October 2021 to September 2023, I held a lectureship in Mexican traditional music at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna (MDW). I have also conducted fieldwork with indigenous groups in Mexico for several years, studying and immersing myself in their musical traditions.

Research interests

My work is situated at the intersection between evolutionary biology, cultural evolution, cognitive sciences of music and ethnomusicology. I am currently interested in analyzing processes of musical transmission and change using conceptual tools from evolutionary developmental biology. My research aims to develop a theoretical framework that can contribute to a better understanding of the complex dynamics of cultural inheritance and change that operate across multiple temporal and spatial scales.

• Cultural evolution
• Evo-Devo
• Ethnomusicology
• Philosophy of biology
• Embodied cognition`

Publications

Villanueva, Luis Alejandro and Villegas, Cristina (forthcoming). Procesos de transmisión musical: el son jarocho y el enfoque evo-devo de reproducción cultural (Processes of musical transmission: the son jarocho and the evo-devo approach to cultural reproduction). To appear in Cruz-Zavaleta, M & Martínez de la Rosa, A (coords). Son en Perspectiva, Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico

Méndez, Manuel and Villanueva, Luis Alejandro (2022). Enfermedades en las Indias y legitimación de la aspiración social criolla en la obra médica de Juan de Cárdenas. (Diseases in the Indies and the legitimacy of the social aspiration of criollos in the medical work of Juan de Cardenas). História Unisinos. 23(6): 490-502. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4013/hist.2022.263.08

Vianna Franco M.P., Molnár O, Laciny A,Treven M, Weger J, da Motta e Albuquerque E, Cazzolla Gatti R, Villanueva Hernandez, LA, Jakab M, Marizzi C, Menéndez, LP,Poliseli L, Bobadilla Rodríguez H, Caniglia G (2022). Diversity regained: Precautionary approaches to COVID-19 as a phenomenon of the total environment. Science of The Total Environment 825(2):1-14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154029

Cazzolla Gatti R, Menéndez L, Laciny A, Bobadilla H, Bravo G, Carmen E, Dorninger C, Fabris F, Grunstra N, Schnorr S, Stuhlträger J, Villanueva Hernandez LA, Jakab M, Sarto-Jackson I, and Caniglia G (2021). Diversity lost: COVID-19 as a phenomenon of the total environment, Science of The Total Environment. 756: 1-14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144014

Martínez, Sergio and Villanueva, Luis Alejandro (2018). Musicality as Material Culture. Adaptive Behaviour, 26(5): 257-267. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1059712318793123

Martínez, Sergio and Villanueva, Luis Alejandro (2018). Las prácticas musicales como corporización de tecnologías básicas de la cognición social (Musical practices as embodied technologies of basic cognition) Metatheoria. Revista de Filosofía e Historia de la Ciencia, 8(2):1-14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48160/18532330me8.171

Links

Email address: luis.villanueva-hernandez@uni-wuerzburg.de