Education
- PhD, University of California, Berkeley
- MA, University of California, Riverside
Biography
Jeff Packman is an Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology who specializes in Brazilian music, popular music of the Americas, and cultural theory. His other scholarly interests include music and technoculture, music cultures of Latin America and the Caribbean, and Afrodiasporic performance. A former working drummer, much of his research emphasizes questions of race, social class, and cultural politics in relation to professional music making. With support from the J. William Fulbright Program and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, he has conducted extensive and ongoing fieldwork in Bahia, Brazil since 2002. This research has provided the basis for several book chapters in edited volumes and articles in scholarly journals including Latin American Music Review, Black Music Research Journal, Ethnomusicology, and Ethnomusicology Forum. Several of his more recent and forthcoming publications were developed while he was the 2009-2010 post-doctoral fellow at York University’s Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples. Presently, in addition to completing a book on professional musicians in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, Dr. Packman is co-leading an interdisciplinary collaborative study of samba de roda, an Afro-Diasporic music and dance complex from the same region that was recently recognized by UNESCO as a masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage. At the University of Toronto, Professor Packman teaches a variety of ethnomusicology and research theory and methods courses in the Faculty of Music’s History and Culture Division and Graduate Program in Performance, and he serves as Associate Dean, Graduate Education, in the Faculty of Music.
Professional Activities
“Chula in the City: Traditions, Translations, and Tactics in Brazilian Samba de Roda,” with Danielle Robinson. In Choreographic Dwellings: Practicing Place, eds. Sarah Rubidge and Gretchen Schiller. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014.
“Authenticity, Uplift, and Cultural Value in Bahian Samba Junino,” with Danielle Robinson. In Bodies of Sound: Studies Across Popular Music and Dance, eds. Sherril Dodds and Susan Cook. London: Ashgate, 2013.
“The Carnavalização of São João: Forrós, Sambas, and Contested Meanings during Bahia, Brazil’s festas juninas.” Ethnomusicology Forum 21 (2), 2012.
“Musicians’ Performances and Performances of ‘Musician’ in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil.” Ethnomusicology 55 (3), 2011.
“Singing Together/Meaning Apart: Popular Music, Participation, and Cultural Politics in Salvador, Brazil.” Latin American Music Review 31(2), 2010.
“Signifyin(g) Salvador: Professional Musicians and the Sound of Flexibility in Bahia, Brazil’s Popular Music Scenes” Black Music Research Journal 29 (1), 2009.