Individual Listing

3110 CHASS INT SOUTH
University of California
Riverside, CA 92521

Wong, Deborah A

Professor and Chair of Music

College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Music


Biography

Deborah Wong is an ethnomusicologist, specializing in the musics of Thailand and Asian America. She holds an M.A. and Ph.D. (1991) from the University of Michigan, where she worked with ethnomusicologist Judith Becker; her B.A., magna cum laude (1982), in anthropology and music, is from the University of Pennsylvania. Her first book, Sounding the Center: History and Aesthetics in Thai Buddhist Ritual (Chicago University Press, 2001), addresses ritual performance about performance and its implications for the cultural politics of Thai court music and dance in late twentieth-century Bangkok. Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music (Routledge, 2004), focuses on music and identity work in a series of case studies (Southeast Asian immigrant musics, Chinese American and Japanese American jazz in the Bay Area, and Asian American hip-hop). She has taught at UCR since fall 1996 and is Professor of Music. Wong has taught as Assistant Professor of Music at Pomona College (1991-93) and at the University of Pennsylvania (1993-96); she was a visiting professor at Princeton University and the University of Chicago. Wong is very active in the Society for Ethnomusicology. She has served on its Board of Directors for three consecutive terms as Secretary (199-2001, 2001-03, 2003-05) as well as on the SEM Council (1992-94). She was president of the SEM Mid-Atlantic Chapter (1994-96), and served as co-editor of the SEM Newsletter with René T.A. Lysloff from 1994-99. She founded the SEM Committee on the Status of Women with Elizabeth Tolbert in 1996. Asian American issues and activities are a priority for Wong. She has served on numerous committees addressing issues in Asian American studies curriculum as well as Asian American student needs. She has studied Japanese American drumming (taiko) since 1997 and is a member of Satori Daiko, the performing group of the Taiko Center of Los Angeles. Her book in progress will address taiko in California. Born on the East Coast, Wong is now an enthusiastic Californian. She self-identifies as Chinese American (third generation), as multiethnic, and as Asian American.

Former Institution

University of Pennsylvania (1993-96), Pomona College (1991-93)

Degrees

BA Anthropology and Music 1982

University of Pennsylvania

PhD Ethnomusicology/Musicology 1991

University of Michigan

Awards

Grace Jeanmee Yoo Unity Award (1999)
UC Pacific Rim Research Grant (1999)
Woman of Achievement Award, Black Voice Foundation (2001)
California Civil Liberties Public Education Program (2001)
University of California Humanities Research Institute (2002)
Creative Residency at the Centrum Center for the Arts, Port Townsend, Washington (2003)
University Honors Professor of the Year, UCR (2004)


Research Area

The music and performance of Asian America and Southeast Asia (particularly Thailand, and also Laos, Cambodia, and Java). Broader interests include identity politics, performance studies, cultural studies, the mass media, popular culture, critical pedagogy, and music and ritual

Publications