Victoria Netanus Xaka
Assistant Professor, Music
Academic focus:
Music and sound studies, Black studies, Black feminist theory, semiotics
Current research project:
I’m working on a book about Rwanda’s popular music industry that considers the role of sounding and listening for Blackness in the (post-genocide) production of a collective social body.
I’m also beginning to explore the radical politics and Black sociality amongst the elders of Oakland’s West Coast Blues scene.
Previous positions:
- Lecturer, Department of Communications, Northeastern University at Mills College, 2024
- Lecturer, Department of African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2023-2024
- Black Studies Collaboratory Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2021-2023
Academic background :
- Ph.D, Media, culture, and communication, New York University, 2021
- M.Ed, Sociology and education, Columbia University Teachers College, 2012
- B.A., Ethnomusicology and music education, Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, University of Redlands, 2008
Last book read:
“Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neal Hurston
In your own time/when not working:
Singing with friends, mountaintops, feet in the grass, sweet and salty snacks
Courses you’re most looking forward to teaching:
I really enjoy teaching Black Music Theory, and I’m excited to teach the course in a music department. I am definitely looking forward to conspiring and co-teaching Introduction to Black Music with Dr. Ambre Dromgoole, because I want to learn everything she knows! I have also been dreaming up a course called Musicians for Abolition that I hope students will help me bring to life.
What most excites you about Cornell:
The undercommons; opportunities for inter/extra disciplinary collaboration and community building
