Anndretta Lyle Wilson, PhD Faculty Profile

Photo of Anndretta Wilson

Anndretta  Lyle  Wilson, PhD

Assistant Professor

Department of Ethnic Studies

Wilson's current manuscript, “Labor, Pleasure, and Possession through Transnational Black Musical Performance” traces US Black American subterranean performances from community spaces where practitioners embodied African retentions to public commercial spaces where derivative performances have been feminized, racialized, and backgrounded in service to popular music globally. The study considers precarity, authorship, mastery, and mobility for Black performers through spaces within the US and circulating transnationally across technologies and geographies. A primary figure is former domestic worker Marion Williams whose forty-year career began in Pentecostal churches in the 1930s and extended to service as a US State Department musical ambassador across Africa and Europe. The study concludes with ethnography of contemporary francophone African performers in Paris who perform gospel concerts advertised as “Black American” for international tourists in Catholic cathedrals.

  • African Diaspora Studies
  • Critical Performance Studies
  • American Studies with an Emphasis on Race
  • Black Feminist Theorizing
  • Womanist Literature, Cultures, and Critique
  • Popular Culture
  • Race and Sports
  • Critical Race Theory

  • Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles
  • M.A. Stanford University
  • B.A. Stanford University

Not teaching this semester.

Wilson, A. (In Press) “Gospel Music” entry. The Sage Encyclopedia of Ethnomusicology. Edited by Janet L. Sturman. Sage Publications.

Wilson, A. (2015) Book review of David Whiteis’ Southern Soul-Blues. Edited by V.P. Franklin. The Journal of African American History, Volume 100.

Wilson, A. (2015) “The N-Word” in the August Wilson Monologue Competition Los Angeles Regional Finals Program Book. Edited by Leslie Johnson. Published by Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles.

MANUSCRIPTS IN PREPARATION

Wilson, A. “Between Duty and Romance: The Attraction of Sounding “Black” in Paris.” Journal of Transnational American Studies.

Wilson, A. "Langston Hughes’ Front Porch: A Dream House Deferred" in the edited volume Performing the Family Dream House: Space, Ritual, and Images of Home. Edited by Emily Klein, Jen-Scott Mobley, and Jill Stevenson.

Wilson, A. “Scandalous Noises and the Soulful Sound of Black Woman Masculinity” in the edited volume Gladiators in Suits: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Representation in Scandal. Edited by Kimberly R. Moffitt, Simone Puff, and Ronald L. Jackson II.

Wilson, A. “Preserving Sacred Space: The Decolonial and Transnational Song Labor of Mahalia Jackson.” 

Wilson, A. “Tracing Social Media Strategies for Obtaining Unlikely Media Coverage of Peaceful Protests: Three Case Studies of Demonstrations with Women Leaders from December 2014.”

2016          “Dirty Conception: Marion Williams and Vinnette Carroll Deliver Black Nativity," Black Musical Theatre panel, Association of Theater in Higher Education (ATHE), Chicago, Illinois, July 2016

2015          “Black Paris Tours: American Fantasies and Pan-African Disruptions,” for the Transnationalisms and Performance Working Group at the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) conference, Portland, Oregon, November 2015.

2015          “Faith and Funk: Groove Music in the Black Pentecostal Church Tradition,” for the Sacred and Profane: The Funk/Spirit, Pentecostal Music, and the Nasty Groove panel at the Association for the Study of African American Life and History conference, Atlanta, Georgia, September 2015.

2015          “Oh Happy Day: The Sound of Subjugation in Songs of Deliverance,” for the Blacknography: Ethnographic Insights on Post-Colonial Black Performance and Performatives panel at the Cultural Studies Association conference, Riverside, California, May 2015. Panel Chair.

2015          “Refusing to Serve: The Gospel Music Performance of Marion Williams” for the Race, Gender, and Modernism: Music as a Case Study panel at the Western Association of Women Historians annual conference, Sacramento, California, May 2015

2016          University of California Consortium for Black Studies Graduate Research Grant

2014          UCLA Institute of American Cultures, Bunche Center for African American Studies Research Grant

2014          UCLA Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship Dissertation Year Funding  

2014          UCLA Theater Film and Television (TFT) Executive Board Research Grant

2014          The Office of Instructional Development (OID) Faculty Mini-Grant for Course Enhancement

2017-2018 Member of Academic Senate Subcommittee Faculty Diversity and Equity Committee (FDEC) representing Ethnic Studies