About

Grace Wang is Associate Professor and chair of the American Studies Department at the University of California, Davis. Her research and teaching focuses on race, immigration, and popular culture, with particular focus on transnational Asian/Asian American cultural productions and the politics of race and music. She is the author of Soundtracks of Asian America (Duke UP, 2015). She is currently working on the history of screen auditions and collaborating on a documentary portrait of timpanist Elayne Jones, a 92 year old classical musician, socialist, and self-proclaimed “stealth bomber” who fought to dismantle race and gender segregation in the elite cultural and musical spheres that excluded her.

Project Description 

Instrumental: The Elayne Jones Project

Instrumental: The Elayne Jones Project explores the life story of Jones, a 92 year old classical musician, socialist, and self-proclaimed “stealth bomber” who fought to dismantle race and gender segregation in the elite cultural and musical spheres that excluded her. This essay highlights the radical imagination that guides her life and the relentless toll that structural practices of exclusion held for her as an African American woman in classical music.