I earned my Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Davis (2014). Before starting my graduate studies in 2008, I researched Slovenian village music practices and traditions, and worked as a music journalist for various Slovenian media (Radio Študent, Ljubljana, Nova Muska, Mladina, Odzven). In 2008, I issued a double CD of my own field recordings of songs from the villages of Upper Savinja Valley in North Slovenia (Gorših ljudi na svetu ni: terenski posnetki ljudskih pesmi iz Zgornje Savinjske doline / There are No Finer People in the World: Field Recordings of Folk Songs from the Upper Savinja Valley). Since 2014, I work as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, where I teach socio-cultural anthropology, ethnomusicology, and popular music courses. Furthermore, I have recently published a book DIY House Shows and Music Venues in the US: Ethnographic Explorations of Place and Community (Routledge, 2021), which is an anthropological study of the relationship between place/space (DIY venues, geographies, and social spaces), and the construction of “intimate” communities. In addition, my articles appear in the following international academic journals: American Music, Communication and the Public, Ethnomusicology Forum, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (in press), Journal of Popular Music Studies, Journal of World Popular Music, and Urban people. They explore the topics ranging from the study of audience participation in relation to affect theory, and ethnographic method in popular music research, to the anthropology of individuals (as DIY music organizers), social life of micro-media, and economic anthropology (examining the co-constitution of reciprocal and capitalist configurations of American DIY music scenes). Finally, I am currently involved in a new research project studying Roma music in north Slovenia.

E-mail:

Research areas: Slovenian village and urban music. American DIY venues, scenes, and communities. Electronic dance music cultures. DIY zines and micro-media. Roma music in north Slovenia.

Research topics: music and youth cultures; music and place/space; music and community; methodology / ethnography; music, gender, minorities; music in socialism and postsocialism; autoethnography and microhistory of family music; social life of DIY zines and micro-media; methodological grappling with silence and absence in Roma music research.

Employment:

2014 – present: assistant professor at the Faculty of Humanities (FHS), Charles University in Prague (Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology).

2024 – 2025: guest researcher at the Department of Musicology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana (part-time).

2020 – 2022: Editor-in-Chief of English editions of international urban anthropology journal Lidé města / Urban People.

2014 – present: assistant professor, Faculty of Humanities (FHS), Charles University in Prague (Department of social and cultural anthropology).

2008 – 2014: graduate teaching assistant, University of California, Davis (Music Department).

Education:

2014: PhD in ethnomusicology, University of California, Davis.

2010: MA in ethnomusicology, University of California, Davis.

2007: BA in music education (specialization: ethnomusicology), Academy of Music, Ljubljana.

Funding & awards:

2024 – 2025. Participation in the research project “Roma musicians in Slovenia”, funded by Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS). Main research institution: Musicology Department, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Time frame: January 2024 – December 2025. Website: http://muzikologijaff.si/rgs

2014. North California Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology’s Marnie Dilling Memorial Prize for best student paper presentation (2014). Awarded for paper “’Fans or Friends?: Local/Tranlocal Dialectics of DIY (Do-It-Yourself’) Touring and DIY Community in the US.”

2012 – 2013: Bilinski fellowship for PhD writing and research.

Selected publications:

Books

2021. DIY House Shows and Music Venues in the US: Ethnographic Explorations of Place and Community. SOAS Studies in Music. New York, and London: Routledge.

Articles

2024 [in press]. “Social Life of Zines and Other DIY Micro-media Constituting American DIY Communities and Scenes.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.

2024 [forthcoming].“Dialectic Ethnography in Theory and Practice: Living and Touring with American DIY Youth.” In Urban Music Studies: Theory and Method, edited by Alenka Barber-Keršovan, Jessica Reia, and Robin Kuchar. Bristol: Intellect Publisher.

2023. “‘A Whole Society, With Its Own Economic System’: The Reciprocal and Capitalist Configurations of American DIY Music Scenes.” Ethnomusicology Forum 32/1. doi:10.1080/17411912.2023.2180050

2021. “Ethnography in Western Popular Music Research Revisited: A Case Study and/as a Critique.” The Journal of World Popular Music 8/2: 207–235.

2021. “Non-musician DIY Individuals as ‘Pillars’ and ‘Icons’ of American DIY Scenes.” American Music 39/3: 365–390.

2018. “Theory and Ethnography of Affective Participation at DIY ('Do-It-Yourself') Shows in the US.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 30/1–2: 79–108.

2017. “Notions of Intimate Publicness, and the American DIY Music Spaces.” Wang, Jing, and Peterson, Marina, eds. Sound and the Public: A Special Issue of Communication and the Public 2/4, 284–304.

2017. “’Houses Provide a Spatial Backbone for Virtually Everything We Do’: An Anthropological Study of DIY (“do-it-yourself”) House Shows in the US.” In Keep it Simple, Make it Fast! An Approach to Underground Scenes. Volume 3. Guerra, Paula, and Tânia Moreira, eds. Porto, Portugal: University of Porto, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, 13–24. (http://www.kismifconference.com/en/2017/05/11/kismif-conference-2016-book-proceedings-2/).

2016. "Prostor, družbena bližina in intimna skupnost v ameriških neodvisnih glasbenih kulturah." Glasnik Slovenskega etnološkega društva 56/1-2: 37-52.

2015. “Fans or Friends?: Local/Translocal Dialectics of DIY (‘do-it-yourself’) Touring and DIY Community in the US.” Lidé města / Urban People, 17/2: 221-246 (http://www.urbanpeople.cz/archiv/cisla/17,-2015,-2/).

2013. “From Text to Context: Performance Events in Primož.” In Trapped in Folklore: Studies in Music and Dance Tradition and Their Contemporary Transformations. Kunej, Drago and Sivic, Ursa (eds). Berlin: LIT Verlag, 41–62.

2009. “Contemporary Musical Peasant Traditions in Primož, Slovenia, and the Notion of 'National Heritage'.” In Voices of the Weak: Music and Minorities. Prague: Slovo21 + Faculty of Humanities of Charles University Prague.

Audio

2008. Gorših ljudi na svetu ni: terenski posnetki ljudskih pesmi iz Zgornje Savinjske doline / There are No Finer People in the World: Field recordings of folk songs from the Upper Savinja Valley (Knjižnica/Library of Mozirje). Audio CD. Author of field recordings, producer, and author of liner notes (see http://gorsihljudi.blogspot.com).

Courses (FHS)

YBAJ037 Music, Culture, and Technology

YBAJ072 Cultural History of Rock and Popular Music

YBA194 History of Jazz

YBA201 Anthropology of Music: Fieldwork and Ethnography Seminar

YBA242 Introduction to Musics of the World

YBA241 Music and Youth Cultures

YBA334 Anthropological Methods: Fieldwork and Ethnography Seminar

YBAJ001 Introduction to Socio-cultural Anthropology

YBSA003 Seminar in Academic Skills

YMA337 Music and Place/Space: Music Venues, Geographies, and Social Spaces

YMA356 Ethnomusicology of Western Art Music

YMA375 The Power of Cultural Representation: From Film, Media, and MTV, to Art, Museums, and Ethnography