Faculty Profile

Rachana Vajjhala
Assistant Professor of Music

My research focuses on France during the long nineteenth century, especially the intersection of the sonic and the kinetic in embodied practices such as ballet. I draw on methodological approaches outside the traditional musicological toolkit and instead propose creative strategies for writing about otherwise under-documented topics. Kinetic Cultures (UC Press, 2023) considers these issues within the context of the belle époque. In its broadest iteration, my work reimagines what is possible for scholars doing historical work on embodied practices—what to talk about when what you want to talk about leaves little or no archival trace. The approaches I develop are in conversation with disciplines adjacent to music studies such as dance history, performance studies, and art history among others, thus offering portable methodologies to scholars in those areas and beyond.  Before coming to UC Davis, I was an Assistant Professor of Musicology at Boston University. My work has appeared in 19th-Century Music, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, and Journal of the American Musicological Society.

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