Education
- 2022–present Ph.D. Candidate in Musicology — Duke University Certificate in Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies. Dissertation (expected defense June 2027): The Feminist Afterlives of the Blues Queen: Historiography and Recovery in American Popular Music (ca. 1920–1980). Examines the feminist afterlives of the vaudeville blues queens, tracing how Black women’s performance and self-authorship have been archived, recirculated, and sold from 1920s race records to the streaming era. Centering Victoria Spivey, the feminist reissue project of Rosetta Reitz, and affect theory, it works at the intersection of African American music historiography, Black feminist theory, sound studies, and archival studies, and closes with white Broadway singers such as Sophie Tucker. It argues for fidelity to archival multiplicity rather than its resolution. Committee: Thomas Brothers (chair), Nicholas Stoia, Yun Emily Wang, Jennifer C. Nash, Daphne A. Brooks (Yale University).
- 2022–2024 M.A. in Musicology — Duke University
- 2018–2021 B.A. in Music — Colorado State University Minors in French and Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies. Undergraduate thesis: An Intersectional and Bourdieusian Labor Analysis of Bessie Smith v. Columbia Records, Inc.
Publications
- 2027 “What Do Feminists Want with the Blues?: Fantasy, Desire, and Rosetta Reitz’s ‘Blues Is a Woman’ (1980–81)” Journal of the American Musicological Society 81, no. 1 (2027). Forthcoming.
- Nov 2025 Review of Blues on Stage, by John L. Clark Jr. Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association. Duke Scholars →
- Mar 2023 Review of The Routledge Companion to Jazz and Gender Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association. Duke Scholars →
Fellowships, grants & awards
- 2026 Fellow (Berger-Carter-Berger) — Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University–Newark In-residence fellow at the Institute of Jazz Studies archives.
- 2026–27 Convener and Founder, Sound, Music, and Gender Working Group — Duke University Awarded funding by the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Graduate Working Group Fund; Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies; and the Department of Music.
- 2026 Dissertation Research Travel Award — The Graduate School, Duke University
- 2026 Conference Travel Grant — Society for American Music
- 2024, 2025 Conference Travel Grant — American Musicological Society
- 2025 Conference Travel Grant — The Graduate School, Duke University
- 2025 International Travel Grant — Bass Connections and the Forum for Scholars and Publics, Duke University
- 2022–2023 Graduate Fellowship — Humanities Unbounded, Duke University Member of the “Black Music and the Soul of America” research group; coordinated visits and collaborated with Rhiannon Giddens, Daphne A. Brooks, and Mark Anthony Neal.
Conference presentations
- Mar 2026 “Blues is a Woman: Situating Feminist Desire in ‘Fantasy’ Concerts” Society for American Music Conference, Richmond, VA.
- Nov 2025 “Blues is a Woman: Situating Feminist Desire in Feminist ‘Fantasy’ Concerts” American Musicological Society Conference, Minneapolis, MN.
- Jan 2025 “Archives and Creative Process” International Care Ethics Research Consortium, Utrecht, Netherlands.
- Nov 2022 “Experimenting Alongside Rameau in Génération Harmonique” Music Scholars National Conference, Society for Music Theory, New Orleans, LA.
- Apr 2021 “An Intersectional Analysis of Women Composers and Labor” Rocky Mountain Chapter, American Musicological Society.
Invited talks & guest lectures
- Jan 2027 Invited lecture: The Disappropriation of Victoria Spivey’s “Tuberculosis Blues” Society for the History of Women in the Americas Seminar Series, British Association for American Studies. Forthcoming.
- Oct 2026 “Timbre in Music Studies” Guest lecture with Anton L. Blackburn, Introduction to Music Theory, Duke University.
- Oct 2026 “Sworn Out of Existence: Victoria Spivey’s ‘T.B. Blues’ (1926) and the Disappropriation of Black Property” Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies Graduate Colloquium, Duke University.
- Sep 2026 “Cello Composition” Guest lecture, Introduction to Composition with John Supko, Duke University.
- Mar 2024 “I am no femme libre”: Proto-Feminist Desire in the Works of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel Guest lecture with John R. Pippen, Colorado State University.
Service
To the profession
- 2025–present Assistant Editor — Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture Line and style editing for quarterly issues.
- 2021–2022 Editor — Open Access Musicology Reviewed and edited undergraduate and graduate musicological papers.
University & departmental
- 2026–present Founder and Convener — Sound, Music, and Gender Working Group, Duke University Convenes biweekly meetings on shared readings and works in progress; arranges guest lectures and co-sponsors interdisciplinary events across the department. Secured and administers support from the Franklin Humanities Institute, the Program in Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, and the Department of Music.
- 2025–2026 President — Music Graduate Student Association, Duke University Graduate student body representative; attended regular meetings with faculty and the Director of Graduate Studies. Coordinated bi-semester meetings and visiting lecturers, and served as MGSA liaison with university administration. Oversaw edits to the MGSA constitution and bylaws and annual group activities across musicology, ethnomusicology, and composition.
Teaching
- 2023–present Assistant Instructor — Duke University Department of Music Studio Pop; Motown and Soul; Music and Fashion. Delivered lectures, led course sessions, and developed instructional materials, including units on feminist movements in punk and post-punk.
- 2023–present Teaching Assistant — Duke University Department of Music Music History I: Medieval and Renaissance; Music History III: Beethoven–WWI; Meet the Beatles and the 1960s.
- 2020–present Instrumental Music Instructor Private studio of 6–10 students taught weekly in cello, composition, music theory, and piano; coordinates student recitals.
Professional experience
- 2023–2025 Project Mentor and Manager — Franklin Humanities Institute and Forum for Scholars and Publics, Duke University Directed team research and student engagement on feminist archival practice related to Rosetta Reitz and the Rosetta Records catalogue (1970–1985). Mentored undergraduate research and international conference presentations; mentee now pursuing a PhD in English with a focus on feminist musical representation.
- 2020–2021 Communications Director — C’elle Initiative: Empowering Women Cellists Designed and co-founded the nonprofit initiative; coordinated international communications.
- 2018–2021 Executive Assistant — International Cello Institute Directed seasonal programming and managed the transition to a virtual format.
Performance
Active performer in both classical and experimental idioms. Performs classical cello repertoire, and composes, performs, and records as anneek, a solo project on cello, voice, and guitar that weaves storytelling with ethereal sound experiments.
Research & teaching expertise
Disciplines. Musicology; African American music studies; sound studies; gender, sexuality, and feminist studies; American studies; archival studies and public humanities; feminist intellectual and cultural history; Marxist analysis.
Teaching areas. African American and African diasporic musics; Black women’s performance history; blues and jazz history; American popular music and culture since 1850; race, gender, and ownership in the music industry; race and the Broadway stage; feminist historiography; feminist movements in punk and post-punk; music, fashion, and material culture; archival methods and sound studies; Western music history survey.
Research areas. African American music and Black feminist theory; affect and the voice in women’s music; race, gender, and property in the music industry; copyright, ownership, and metadata in recorded music; white women’s performance of the blues on Broadway and in rock; the blues revival, counterculture, and feminist punk.
References
- Thomas BrothersProfessor of Music, Duke University
- Daphne A. BrooksWilliam R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of African American Studies, American Studies, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Music, Yale University
- Yun Emily WangAndrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Music; Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Duke University
Contact information available upon request.