Jessica Bissett Perea
University of California, Davis
Dr. Jessica Bissett Perea (Dena’ina [Alaska Dena]) is an interdisciplinary musician-scholar whose Indigenous-led and Indigeneity-centered work uplifts radical and relational ways of being, knowing, and doing to generate more just futures for Indigenous communities. She is a double bassist and vocalist and holds a BME in Music Education, an MA in Music History, and a PhD in Musicology. Her first book Sound Relations: Native Ways of Doing Music History in Alaska (Oxford University Press, 2021) delves into contemporary Inuit musical life across a range of genres—from hip hop to hymnody and drumsongs to funk and R&B—to amplify the significance of sound as integral to Indigenous self-determination and resurgence movements. Sound Relations won the 2023 Irving Lowens Book Award from the Society for American Music, the 2023 International Council for Traditional Music and Dance Book Prize, and the 2023 Ruth Stone Prize from the Society of Ethnomusicology. Dr. Bissett Perea currently works as an Associate Professor of American Indian Studies and Adjunct Associate Professor of Music History at the University of Washington, where she teaches courses on American Indian Arts and Aesthetics, Native American Performing Arts Cultures, and Indigenous Research Methodologies.
