Office: CPMC 248
m1leslie@ucsd.edu
M. Myrta Leslie Santana is an ethnomusicologist and performer whose work examines the social and political significance of trans and queer performance in the Americas. Her book Transformismo: Performing Trans/Queer Cuba, an ethnography of drag performance in contemporary Cuba, will be published by the University of Michigan Press in 2025. Transformismo tells a story about the ways trans and queer performers in Cuba are working against intensifying racial, sexual, and economic inequity on the island. In addition to her book, Leslie Santana has published essays on music and performance, gender/sexuality, and higher education in Small Axe, the Journal of the Society for American Music, Queer Nightlife (Michigan), and Queering the Field: Sounding Out Ethnomusicology (Oxford). At UC San Diego, Leslie Santana teaches classes on trans and queer performance, expressive cultures in the Americas, and research and teaching methods. Originally from Miami, Florida, she studied ethnomusicology, women’s studies, and violin performance at Harvard University, the University of Michigan, and the Cleveland Institute of Music.