Joseph Howley and Magdalena Stern-Baczewska
Miss Traumerei (1895)
Classicist and book historian Joseph Howley and concert pianist, harpsichordist, and music educator Magdalena Stern-Baczewska came together for a Library Chat reflecting on their time at the Institute, where conversations across disciplines uncovered shared questions about performance, interpretation, and the relationship between text and audience. In discussion, they explored Howley’s research on reading practices, slavery, and the history of the book in the Roman world alongside Stern-Baczewska’s work on musical performance, improvisation, and pedagogy, considering how both literary and musical traditions are brought to life through acts of interpretation, and how performance, memory, and creative choice shape the transmission of culture across time.
Joseph A. Howley holds an M Litt in Ancient History and a PhD in Classics from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, having previously studied at the University of Maryland. His research concerns the intellectual and media cultures of the Roman world, and the history of the book. He grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC and has taught at Columbia since 2011. Since 2016, he has been a Senior Fellow of the Andrew W. Mellon Society for Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School, an independent 501(c)(3) located at the University of Virginia. The Society is an interdisciplinary community of scholars and practitioners working on the study of books and material text across time periods and geographies. In 2025-2026, he will serve as President of the Society.
Magdalena Stern-Baczewska is a Polish-American concert pianist, harpsichordist, and educator. Since 2014, she has served as the Director of the Music Performance Program and Senior Lecturer in Music at Columbia University. She has performed as a soloist with major orchestras such as the San Francisco Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra and has appeared in concerts with notable artists like Joshua Bell and Tan Dun. Baczewska’s discography spans Baroque, Romantic, and contemporary music, including collaborations with DJs and Hip-hop and EDM artists. Together with the Bluesleep medical team, which specializes in treating sleep disorders, she has produced the best-selling Music for Dreams album series. As a Yamaha artist, she has pioneered the use of Yamaha Disklavier technology in both teaching and recording. A passionate advocate for equal access to the joy of music, she engages in outreach and community initiatives as a teaching artist for Tonebase, Lecturer in Residence for the Grand Piano Series, and Grandmentor for the Musical Mentors Collaborative.
