The work of professor Jesús A. Ramos-Kittrell covers the early modern period and more current analyses of globalization, merging music studies with social history, cultural studies, and literary theory. His research broaches sound as a means through which people negotiate power asymmetries in dynamics of social and political organization, producing effects in the institutionalized cultural narratives that structure society and that silence dissent. In this context, Ramos-Kittrell analyzes sound as a type of political enunciation, which does not overcome institutional narrative but emerges from it, seeking to affect it by unsettling its rhetoric, thereby making culture an unstable and contentious site of political action. His research interests include critical race theory, subalternity, and deconstruction in relation to sound and literature, early modern studies, Latin American and Latinx studies, gender, race, and sexuality; and neoliberalism and globalization.

His publications include Playing in the Cathedral: Music, Race and Status in New Spain (Oxford University Press, 2016), which provides a critical analysis of music production in the New World as a strategy to contest racialization. He has authored articles published by the Latin American Music Review, the Journal of the Society for American Music, and Revista de Musicología; chapters featured in edited volumes with Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Lexington Books, and Brill Publications; entries and annotated bibliographies for Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online) and Oxford Bibliographies, as well as numerous book reviews. Professor Ramos-Kittrell is also the editor of “Sound, Activism, and Social Justice” (2022), a themed issue for Americas: A Hemispheric Music Journal, and the award-winning volume Decentering the Nation: Music, Mexicanidad, and Globalization (Lexington Books, 2020). Currently, Professor Ramos-Kittrell is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal for the Society of American Music and of Americas: A Hemispheric Music Journal. Over the years, he has served in different capacities in the American Musicological Society, the Society for Ethnomusicology, the College Music Society, and the Modern Language Association.

• Ph.D. 2006, The University of Texas at Austin
• M.M. 2001, The University of Texas at Austin
• B.M. 1998, The University of Texas at Austin

HONORS

• Ellen Koskoff Edited Volume Prize – Society for Ethnomusicology
• Helen Roberts Prize Honorable Mention – Society for Ethnomusicology
• Publication Subvention Award – American Musicological Society
• Clinton Global Initiative Selection – The Clinton Foundation
• Teaching Excellence Award – American Association of University Professors

• Ellen Koskoff Edited Volume Prize – Society for Ethnomusicology
• Helen Roberts Prize Honorable Mention – Society for Ethnomusicology
• Publication Subvention Award – American Musicological Society
• Clinton Global Initiative Selection – The Clinton Foundation
• Teaching Excellence Award – American Association of University Professors

MONOGRAPHS

Playing in the Cathedral: Music, Race and Status in New Spain. Oxford University Press, 2016.

EDITED VOLUMES

Música, representación y conflicto en América Latina. Universidad Autónoma de Chile - Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla, 2024.

“Sound and Activism.” Americas: A Hemispheric Music Journal. University of Nebraska Press, 2022.

Decentering the Nation: Music, Mexicanidad, and Globalization. Lexington Books, 2020.

ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS

“The Sound of the Word: Music and Transgression in Colonial Lyric Poetry.” In A History of Mexican Poetry, edited by Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, Anna M. Nogar, and José Ramón Ruisánchez Serra. Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).

“Sound and Activism. Listening and Responsibility.” In “Sound, Activism, and Social Justice.” Americas: A Hemispheric Music Journal. University of Nebraska Press, 2022.

“Music and Literature in New Spain. The Politics of Buen Gusto in 18th-Century Mexico City.” In A Companion to Viceregal Mexico City, 1519-1821, edited by John F. Lopez. Brill Publications, 2021.

“Post-Mexicanidad apropos of the Postnational.” In Decentering the Nation: Music, Mexicanidad, and Globalization, edited by Jesús A. Ramos-Kittrell. Lexington Books, 2020.

“Sounding Cumbia: Past and Present in a Globalized Mexican Periphery.” In Decentering the Nation: Music, Mexicanidad, and Globalization, edited by Jesús A. Ramos-Kittrell. Lexington Books, 2020.