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Dr. Sonia Seeman's interests focus on the music of modern Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, and Southeastern Europe, specializing in Rom ("Gypsy") communities. She has done field research in Macedonia and Southeastern Europe (1985-87; 1989) and in Turkey (1995-1999; 2003) on Rom, Turkish, and transnational musical practices. She received her Phd from UCLA in 2002. Her dissertation,"'You're Roman!' Music and Identity in Turkish Roman Communities," investigates the relationship between cultural practices and Rom social identity by exploring the tension between music as lived experience and as socially and politically constructed from the Byzantine and Ottoman periods through the present. She taught at UCSB for 4 years on a post-doctoral faculty fellowship and as a lecturer. Courses taught at UCSB and UCLA include: the music of Turkey, Ottoman communities, Roma communities, and Southeastern Europe, as well as seminars on ethnomusicological theory, world popular music, and the anthropology of music. Her theoretical interests include: transnationalism and cosmopolitanism; minority communities; recording industry; post-structuralism; phenomenological hermeneutics. Seeman has articles in Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Ethnomusicology Forum, and Music and Anthropology. She has also written several sets of liner notes, and co-produced an ethnographic recording with clarinetist Selim Sesler, "Roads to Kesan", released by Kalan Muzik. Her recent research interests explore emergent Turkish cultural expressions and ongoing configuration of ethnic and gendered identities in the wake of the European Union accession processes.

For more information, see: http://music.utexas.edu/about/people/seeman-sonia