Rebecca Bodenheimer

Dr. Rebecca Bodenheimer is an independent scholar/researcher and freelance writer with expertise in Cuban music, society, and racial politics and American popular culture. She has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Cuba since 2004, examining the intersection of race, regionalism, and Afro-Cuban musical performance. Bodenheimer has broader expertise in Latin American, Caribbean, and Afro-diasporic music, culture, and racial politics. She holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from UC Berkeley.

Bodenheimer is the author of Geographies of Cubanidad: Place, Race, and Musical Performance in Contemporary Cuba (2015, University Press of Mississippi). Her academic publications have appeared in various print journals and online venues, including Black Music Research Journal, The Musical Quarterly, Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies, and the Oxford Bibliographies in Music. Her freelance writing has been published by CNN Opinion, Remezcla, The Rumpus, Cuba Counterpoint, and Pop Matters.

Bodenheimer has presented her research at dozens of national conferences and been invited to speak at symposia and forums at Virginia Commonwealth University, UC Berkeley’s Center for Latin American Studies, and Western Washington University.