Russell Rodriguez

Russell C. Rodríguez received his Ph.D. from the department of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and was named a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in 2007.

Rodriguez has contributed chapters to various anthologies on Latina/o expressive culture and co-authored an article with George Lipsitz, “Turning Hegemony On its Head: The Insurgent Knowledge of Américo Paredes,” in the Journal of American Folklore. Rodríguez has worked as a curator for the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage annual American Festival, co-curating the “Latino Music Program” in 2004. In 2005 he co-produced the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings CD compilation Rolas de Aztlán: Songs of the Chicano Movement that featured the unsung Chicana/o musical artists and groups of the 1970s.

As an artist Rodriguez has worked as a musician, musical director, composer and arranger in a variety of venues and mediums. In 2010 Rodriguez worked as the assistant producer and musical director for the documentary La Danza Escenica: El Sello de Rafael Zamarripa, for which he coordinated musicians, composed, arranged, and recorded the musical selections as part of the film’s soundscape. He contributed original music to the documentary The Storm that Swept Mexico, produced by Ray Tellez, and most recently created a musical score for a theatrical version of B. Traven’s novella Macario, for the Teatro Vision in San Jose, California.