Anna Gatdula

Assistant Professor

Anna B. Gatdula (she/her) is an assistant professor in musicology. She received her B.M. in voice performance with a minor in english literature from DePauw University; M.A. in musicology with an outside area focus in ethnomusicology from Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music; and Ph.D. in music history and theory from the University of Chicago.

Her scholarly interests lie at the intersection of aesthetic theory and cultural history, and her research centers 20^th-century US and  Cold War history, opera studies, critical theory, and sound studies. Her project in-progress, “Spectacles of a Nuclear Empire: Opera and Film in the American Atomic Age, 1945–2018” examines the unique power of spectacle to produce and reproduce narratives of the United States’ position as a global superpower in the wake of its use of nuclear weapons. She has presented her research at national meetings of the American Musicological Society and American Studies Association. Before moving to North Carolina, she organized with Asian/American community and activist groups in Chicago, IL, and Project Spectrum. With Project Spectrum she has published on issues around diversity and inclusion in Current Musicology and American Music (forthcoming).