ANTHROPOLOGY

at Gavilan College

 

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Courses

2008

Klein

Biography
 
 

Debbie Klein

 
Debbie Klein at work
 
I grew up in Tampa, Florida and was raised by parents from New York. From an early age, I was exposed to a variety of cultures. Excited about studying nonwestern cultures and their histories, I discovered Anthropology in my early college years. I went on to earn my PhD in Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz in 2000.

Before teaching at Gavilan, I taught at UC Santa Cruz, Cabrillo College, the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, and Vassar College. I have been doing research with extended families of drummers and dancers from Erin-Osun, Nigeria for the past fifteen years. Based on my fieldwork throughout the 1990s, my ethnography, Yoruba Bata Goes Global: Artists, Culture Brokers, and Fans (2007), focuses on the role of collaboration in the production and marketing of traditional culture. As an anthropologist, I am interested in a variety of topics, including: the relationship between culture and power, globalization, human rights, social change, gender, body politics, performance, decolonization, cultural theory, diaspora studies, Yoruba studies, Africa.

In addition to teaching at Gavilan College, I am collaborating with the Social Science department in revisioning our Social Science major.  We have created two new Social Science majors: one with an emphasis in Community Studies and one with an emphasis in Global Studies.  We have also launched and institutionalized Gavilan College's Service Learning Program in the Social Sciences. Joining faculty efforts to continue building a campus inclusive of all faculty, I also serve as Secretary of the Gavilan College Faculty Association.

When I'm not working at Gavilan, reading, or writing, I practice Iyengar yoga, dance, garden, and hang out with friends.  Lately, I have been back in rehearsals with my dance company, Yogamotion.
 

Education:

BA in Anthropology from Brown University
MA & Ph.D. in Anthropology from UC Santa Cruz
 
 

Select Publications

 

Books

 

Yoruba Bata Goes Global: Artists, Culture Brokers, and Fans (2007)

 

Yoruba Bata Goes Global jacket image

 

Articles

 

Forthcoming      “Keeping the Ayàn Ancestral Legacy Alive in a Modernizing Nigeria.” In Wood

                              That Talks: Trans-Atlantic Perspectives on the Orisa of Drumming, ed.

                          Michael D. Marcuzzi and Amanda Villepastour, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.                   

 

Forthcoming      “Performing Pop Tradition in Nigeria: From Yorùbá Bàtá to Bàtá Fújì.” In

                          Africa and the Politics of Popular Culture, ed. Toyin Falola, Rochester:

                          University of Rochester Press.

 

Forthcoming      “Pop Tradition in Nigeria: Transforming Traditional Yorùbá Bàtá Performance

                          into a Worldly Fusion.” In CORD Proceedings. Champaign: University of

                          Illinois Press.

 

2002                 “Building Status and Overseas Networks:  Erin-Osun Artists Manage

                          Devaluation.”  In Money Struggles and City Life: Devaluation in Ibadan

                          and Other Urban Centers in Southern Nigeria, 1986-1996, ed. Jane

                          Guyer, LaRay Denzer, and Adigun Agbaje.  Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann

                          Press.

 
Radio Interviews
 
KUSP 2/18/08

Agony Column 2/25/08 (scroll to bottom of page)
   

     

   

 

Slide Shows
 

Erin-Osun, Nigeria  (pdf)

Erin-Osun, Nigeria  (Powerpoint)
 
Videos
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Select Talks

 
 

2008     "Keeping the Ayàn Ancestral Legacy Alive in a Modernizing Nigeria: Tracking

              Notions of Traditional Culture through Three Generations of Yòrúba Artists,"

              Paper presented for African Studies Association held in Chicago, IL.

2007     “Performing Pop Tradition in Nigeria: From Yorùbá Bàtá to Bàtá Fújì,”

              Paper presented for the Congress on Research in Dance held in New York,

              NY.

    

2007     “Reality: The Making of a Yoruba Culture Movement,” Paper presented for

              African Popular Cultures conference held in Austin, TX.

             

2006     “Transgressing Reality: Yoruba Artists Challenge the Momentum of Progress,"

              Paper presented for African Studies Association held in San Francisco, CA.

             

2005     “Sculpting Osogbo: Strategic Collaborations Among Yoruba Artists and

              Three Germanic Culture Brokers.”  Paper presented for African Studies

              Association held in Washington, D.C.

 

2004     “From Mbari Mbayo to a Yoruba Transculture Community: Merging

              Fantasies in an Age of Globalization." Paper presented for African Studies

              Association held in New Orleans, LA.

 

2002     “Lamidi Ayankunle Produces Authenticity From the Margins: Globalizing 

              Cultural Diversity.” Paper presented for American Anthropological   

              Association held in New Orleans, LA.      

 

2001     “Sculpting Osogbo: Europeans Collaborate in the Production of Yoruba

              Tradition." Invited paper for the Workshop on “Cultures of Encounter" held   

              at UC Santa Cruz, CA.   

2000     “Con/fusion: Anti-Politics of Collaboration,” Paper presented for American   

              Anthropological Association held in San Francisco, CA.

1998     “Look, There Goes the Father of Foreign Lands”:  Erin-Osun Artists Build

              Status and Overseas Networks.”  Paper presented for African Studies

              Association held in Chicago, IL.

1995     "Pseudo Notions of a Nation:  Articulating Nigerian Identities in and out of

              Nigeria."  Paper presented for American Anthropological Association held

              in Washington, DC.
 
 
Contact: dklein@gavilan.edu, 408-848-4834
Copyright © 2008 Debra L. Klein. All rights reserved.