Cory James LaFevers

Cory LaFevers studies performance in transnational formations of race and place. His research interests include music and dance in the African Diaspora, whiteness and anti-racism, embodiment, and the performance of objects and things. He has published articles in PARtake (forthcoming), Revista África(s), and AlterNativas, and contributed chapters to volumes published in the United States and Brazil.

He is completing a monograph that examines gendered racial embodiment, whiteness, and anti-racist pedagogy in the Brazilian music scene of Austin, Texas. The book explores the extent to which Afro-Brazilian genres reinforce the racialization of national identities while simultaneously contributing to localized performances of Austin as a place of weird, liberal whiteness.

He has begun an ongoing project investigating the Portuguese-derived rabeca fiddle as it performs assemblages of place (nature, the rural economy) and heritage, providing insights into how contemporary identities are forged with the aid of an instrument that sounds out nostalgic (re)imaginings of place and past. He is also interested in how digital spaces such as social media networks and virtual instrument databases facilitate collaborations between musicians, instrument makers, and culture workers with physical spatial counterparts—museums, cultural exhibits, and events. This project contributes a Lusophone and Afro-diasporic perspective to existing research on transnational fiddle traditions in the North Atlantic.

As a lecturer in the Department of Performance Studies at Texas A&M University, he teaches various courses, including Music in the Americas and Guitar Heroes. He earned his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Texas in 2018 and holds an MM in Ethnomusicology (UT) and an MA in Pan-African Studies from Syracuse University.