About
I research on two fronts: contemporary Brazilian funk and 19th century Trinidadian popular culture. Currently, I am completing a dissertation on Rio de Janeiro funk events called bailes de corredor (corridor events). Corridor events feature physical conflict between two opposing groups separated by a space called the corridor, while DJs play Rio funk—a local electronic music. Each side is composed of galeras (attendees linked to place of origin), or groups of dozens if not hundreds of funkeiros (funk adepts) who represent blocks, neighborhoods, or favelas (informal communes) and, in perpetuity, either Lado A (A-side) or Lado B (B-side). The chief considerations that have emerged from my research include the history of corridor dances; the importance of music for rooting a sense of place among participants; the sense of territorial belonging among galeras; and the often-violent conditions pertaining to Rio de Janeiro and its relation to corridor events—all linked to a concept of funk and galera culture as part of a city divided by class, race, and, more recently, criminal governance.
My other major project is archival research concerning Carnival and processional festivities in 19th century Trinidad. A forthcoming article focuses on Canboulay, a procession originally linked to enslaved labor on the sugar plantations which, after Emancipation, shifted into a city-wide festive procession associated with participatory music-making, territorial contentions, and group belonging. My second forthcoming article analyzes the late-19th century Carnival characters pierrot and pisse-en-lit. Pierrots claimed small city-spaces by showcasing their esoteric wisdom to onlookers and, at times, brawled with other pierrots over territory; the pisse-en-lit paraded the streets while displaying bloodied clothes, simulating sexual intercourse in the central spaces of the city in a costume worn by both men and women but which, crucially, problematized femininity. A third article, under review, examines the Canboulay and Hosay riots of the 1880s, a contentious period when the authorities cracked down on both the black-based Canboulay and the Indian-based Hosay processions—processions essential for group mobility—in attempts to extinguish the celebrations.
I also play the diatonic and chromatic harmonicas, specializing in jazz, blues, and Brazilian choro.
Workshops
- Ethnoise! (presenter)
- Sound and Society (presenter)
- Workshop on Latin America and the Caribbean (presenter)
- Theatre and Performance Studies (presenter)
Teaching Experience
- World Music (Winter 2024–Instructor)
- World Music (Autumn 2024–Instructor)
- Music of the Caribbean (Autumn 2023–Course Assistant)
- Latin American Civilization I (Winter 2022–Course Assistant)
- World Music (Autumn 2022–Course Assistant)
- History of Blues and Rock and Roll (Spring 2017–Course Assistant at Boston University)
- History of Jazz (Autumn 2017–Course Assistant at Boston University)
- Bob Dylan: Music and Words (Autumn 2016–Course Assistant at Boston University)