Dr. Jessica Peritz

Biography

Jessica Peritz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at Yale University. She specializes in Western music from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, with particular emphasis on opera and vocal music. Her research focuses on the intersections of Italian cultural history, literature, and philosophy during the long eighteenth century, exploring themes such as voice studies and gender and sexuality studies. Peritz is a cultural historian who examines representations of bodies, politics, and the role of music in shaping historical narratives. Her prize-winning book, "Lyric Myth Voice: Civilizing Song in Enlightenment Italy" (University of California Press, 2022), investigates how Italian Enlightenment efforts to redefine song served as a tool for creating 'civilized' political subjects. She is currently working on a new book project on the historiography of musical performance during the half-century of the Enlightenment, focusing on Metastasian opera seria. Her research has been published in reputable academic journals including the Journal of the American Musicological Society and the Journal of Musicology. Peritz has received several accolades and fellowships, including the Indiana University Press Prize and the Paul Pisk Prize from the American Musicological Society. She obtained her Ph.D. in music history from the University of Chicago in 2019 and has been part of Yale's faculty since fall 2019.

Research Interests

Experience

Awards