New Faculty: Victoria Netanus Xaka

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 Neale 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