Nadine Hubbs, Ph.D.
Primary Investigator
Nadine Hubbs is a musicologist; scholar of gender-sexuality, class, and race; and cultural historian. Her work has focused on American and (sometimes) British popular and classical music of the twentieth century to the present, including Bernstein and the Copland-Thomson circle, 1970s disco, Morrissey, Radiohead, Springsteen, and postwar country including Dolly Parton, Gretchen Wilson, and David Allan Coe. Hubbs's writings examine how musical sounds and practices shape and are shaped by shifting practices of gender and sexuality, class, and race. She is the author of two award-winning books—The Queer Composition of America's Sound and Rednecks, Queers, and Country Music—and many essays and articles, and co-editor of the award-winning collection Uncharted Country: New Voices and Perspectives in Country Music Studies. Hubbs and her work have been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Salon, Slate, VICE, Billboard, Christian Science Monitor, Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, Pacifica Radio, NPR, BBC, Swedish Radio, and many other media outlets. She is Professor of Women's Studies and Music and Faculty Associate in American Culture at the University of Michigan and directs the Lesbian-Gay-Queer Research Initiative in Michigan's Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG). Her research for Country Mexicans has received generous support from a Michigan Humanities Award and fellowships from U-M's IRWG; College of Literature, Science & the Arts; and Office of Research.
Sergio G. Barrera, M.A.
Research Associate, 2017–18
Sergio G. Barrera is a doctoral student in the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan. His research interests include Chicano masculinity on the border, the queer workings of class and rurality, and rural gender performance and queer secrecy. Barrera’s current projects interrogate the ways masculinity has been constructed in the rural borderlands and how queer Chicanos keep their sexuality secret in small communities. He is also working on the queering of male homosocial spaces, particularly in Latino fraternities, arguing that these are part of a masculine continuum and work against compulsory heterosexuality. Barrera holds a B.A. in Mexican American Studies and Spanish from University of Texas–Pan American and an M.A. in Mexican American Studies from University of Texas–Rio Grande Valley. In 2017 he received the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies’ Cervantes Premio for his paper “Hauntings In My Closet: A Constant Reminder of Queer Aesthetics and Expected Internalized Masculinity” and was named Alumnus of the Year by Phi Iota Alpha Fraternity, Inc., at both the Texas-regional and national levels.
Angelene Ku
Research Assistant, 2017–18
In fall 2017 Angelene Ku came to the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance as a violin performance major. Angelene has long dedicated herself to the field of music and has won national music competitions in Korea and performance awards in Michigan. She has lived in various places around the globe, including Korea, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Oregon, and Michigan.
Kate M. Rodriguez
Research Assistant, 2017
Kate M. Rodriguez graduated from University of Michigan in Spring 2018 with a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Moral and Political Philosophy. In addition to her work on Country Mexicans she served as a director of The Detroit Partnership, a student-run 501(c)(3) organization on the U-M Ann Arbor campus. In 2017–18 she worked a Lansing intern with Gretchen Whitmer for Governor and plans to pursue a political career in Washington, D.C.
