Carol Silverman, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, will give a lecture titled “Global Gypsy: Balkan Romani Music, Representation and Appropriation.”

Dr. Silverman is a cultural anthropologist and folklorist who has been involved with Balkan music and culture for over 30 years as a researcher, teacher, activist, and performer. Focusing on Bulgaria and Macedonia as well as on Balkan Romani immigrants to North America and western Europe, she has investigated the relationship among politics, ethnicity, ritual, music, and gender. She also explores the phenomenon of “Gypsy” music in relation to issues of appropriation, representation, and the negotiation of identities in the world music market. Her book Romani Routes: Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora was released in 2012 by Oxford University Press with an extensive accompanying website. Her research has been supported by Guggenheim, IREX, NEH, ACLS, and NCSEER. Among her many articles and book chapters about Balkan folklore and Romani (Gypsy) communities in the U.S. and abroad are: Trafficking in the Exotic with “Gypsy” Music: Balkan Roma, Cosmopolitanism, and “World Music” Festivals in Balkan Popular Culture and the Ottoman Ecumene: Music, Image, and Regional Political Discourse (Scarecrow Press 2007); and Education, Agency, and Power among Macedonian Muslim Romani Women in New York City in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (Symposium on Romani Feminisms) 38(1), 2012. In 1996, Dr. Silverman was the recipient of a university award for Distinguished Teaching. She teaches courses on the Balkans, Jewish folklore, ethnography, feminism, and performative theories of culture.