Ana Hofman is an ethnomusicologist and anthropologist. She is interested in music, sound and politics in socialist and post-socialist societies, with an emphasis on memory, affect and activism. Her broader research interests include the issues of labour, class, gender, political economy and social movements as interelated with music and sound. In her current project focused on post-Yugoslav activist choirs, she uses both archival and ethnographic methods to examine the politics of memorializations of socialism after Yugoslavia. Concentrated around the concept of strategic amateurism, the project engages with activism, leisure and reconcptualization of the notion of resistance in the present-day conjuncture of neoliberalism and post-socialism in the area of former Yugoslavia.
She has published two monographs: Staging Socialist Femininity: Gender Politics and Folklore Performances in Serbia (Brill, 2011) and Music, Affect, Politics: New Lives of Partisan Songs in Slovenia (ZRC 2015), translated into Serbian as New Lives of Partisan Songs (Biblioteka XX vek, 2016).
She is a lecturer at ZRC SAZU Postgraduate School, Ljubljana. In Winter semester 2017 she was a visiting lecturer at the University of Performing Arts, Graz, Austria while in Summer semester 2018 she was a Postdoctoral Fulbright Fellow at the Graduate School of City University of New York. She was a visiting fellow at the School of Music, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Southeastern European Studies, University of Graz, Austria; Visiting researcher at the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center for Balkan studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Visiting Research Fellow at New Europe College, Bucharest, Romania, Max Plank Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany and the Department of Music, University of Chicago.
She has received the Danubius Mid-Career Award by the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Research and the Institute for Central Europe and Danube Region in 2018.
Beyond the academy, she has been actively engaged in shaping equal opportunity policies in Slovenian academic institutions, collaborating with various activist groups in the region and making documentary films. Author of the documentary movie »Solčence zahaja« (2020) Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tGVGAhLG-c.
Affect’s Social Lives: Post-Yugoslav Reflections, ZRC Publishing (co-editor with Tanjo Petrović), 2023, https://omp.zrc-sazu.si/zalozba/catalog/book/2068
Guest editor of the thematic issue “Resounding antifascism across borders” (with Federico Spinetti and Monika Schoop), Popular Music and Society Volume 44 (2): 2021. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03007766.2020.1820780
Disobedient: activist choirs, radical amateurism, and the politics of the past after Yugoslavia. Ethnomusicology 64 (1): 2020, 89-109.https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/ethnomusicology.64.1.0089 [COBISS.SI-ID 45944109]
The romance with affect sonic politics in a time of political exaustion. Culture, theory & critique. Volume 61 (2-3): 2020 Musical Feelings and Affective Politics, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14735784.2020.1848603?journalCode=rctc20, DOI: 10.1080/14735784.2020.1848603. [COBISS.SI-ID 43527427]
"We are the partisans of our time": antifascism and post-Yugoslav singing memory activism. Popular music and society. Volume 44 (2): 2021, 157-174. Music and the politics of memory: resounding antifascism across borders, DOI: 10.1080/03007766.2020.1820782. [COBISS.SI-ID 35920643]
(With Spinetti, Federico and Monika Schoop). Introduction to music and the politics of memory: resounding antifascism across borders. A special issue of Popular music and society Volume 44 (2): 2021, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03007766.2020.1820780, DOI: 10.1080/03007766.2020.1820780. [COBISS.SI-ID 35949315]
(With Petrović, Tanja). Rethinking class in socialist Yugoslavia: labor, body, and moral economy. In: The cultural life of capitalism in Yugoslavia: (post)socialism and its other. Ed by. Dijana Jelača, Maša Kolanović and Danijela Lugarič [Basingstoke]: Palgrave Macmillan 2017, 61-80.
Novi život partizanskih pesama [New Lives of Partisan Songs] (Biblioteka XX vek, 226). Beograd: XX vek, 2016. 210 str., ilustr. ISBN 978-86-7562-131-7. [COBISS.SI-ID 223274508]
Glasba, politika, afekt: novo življenje partizanskih pesmi v Sloveniji [Music, Politics, Affect: New Lives of Partisan Songs in Slovenia] (Zbirka Kulturni spomin). Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU, 2015. 185 str., [8] str. pril., ilustr., note. ISBN 978-961-254-739-4. [COBISS.SI-ID 276198144]
The affective turn in ethnomusicology. Muzikologija, ISSN 1450-9814, 2015, no. 18, str. 35-55. , doi: 10.2298/MUZ1518035H. [COBISS.SI-ID 39355437]
Music (as) labour : professional musicianship, affective labour and gender in socialist Yugoslavia. Ethnomusicology forum. Apr. 2015, vol. 24, no. 1, str. 28-50. ISSN 1741-1912. DOI: 10.1080/17411912.2015.1009479. [COBISS.SI-ID 38201645],
Introduction to the co-edited issue "Music, affect and memory politics in post-Yugoslav space". Southeastern Europe, ISSN 0094-4467. [Print ed.], 2015, vol. 39, no. 2, str. 145-164, doi: 10.1163/18763332-03902001. [COBISS.SI-ID 38937389]
Music and politics in the post-Yugoslav space: toward a new paradigm of politics of music in the 21st century (01. july 2018 - 30. june 2021)
Communities of Practice for Accelerating Gender Equality and Institutional Change in Research and Innovation across Europe - ACT (framework program • 01. may 2018 - 31. october 2021)
City Sonic Ecology: Urban Soundscapes of Bern, Ljubljana, and Belgrade (international research project • 01. september 2014 - 28. february 2018)
Gendering the Academy and Research: Combating Career Instability and Asymmetries (GARCIA) (framework program • 01. february 2014 - 31. january 2017)
Engaged past: social-anthropological analysis of transformations of popular music in the former Yugoslavia (fundamental research project • 01. august 2013 - 31. july 2016)
Multicultural heritage and nation state: cases of Prekmurje, Bela krajina and Primorska (fundamental research project • 01. july 2011 - 30. june 2014)
Neglected Holocaust: Remembering the Deportation of the Jews in Slovenia (01. july 2010 - 30. june 2012)
Sounds of border: Music and identity in Slovenian border regions (postdoctoral research project • 01. may 2009 - 30. april 2011)
Professional Bases, Strategies and Theoretical Frameworks of Education for Intercultural Relations and Active Citizenship (applied project • 01. january 2010 - 31. august 2011)
Socialist heritage in comparative perspective (bilateral project • 01. january 2009 - 31. december 2010)
Current post
Senior research associate, Institute of Cultural and Memory Studies, Scientific Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Lecturer, ZRC SAZU Postgraduate School
Visiting lecturer, University of Performing Arts, Graz, Austria
Education
PhD, 2007, Graduate School for Intercultural Studies, University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia Thesis Title: “The Identity Politics and the Female Singers Stage Performances in Niško Polje in the Last Third of the Twentieth Century”
MA, 2005, Gender studies, Faculty of Political sciences, Belgrade, Serbia
MPhil, 2004, Faculty of Music, University of Arts, Belgrade, Serbia
BA, 1999, Faculty of Music, University of Arts, Belgrade, Serbia
Languages
Serbo-Croatian (mother tongue), Slovenian (fluent), English (fluent), French (good), German (basic)
Teaching experience
Visiting lecturer, Institute of Ethnomusicology, University of Performing Arts, Graz, Austria
Assistant Professor (2015-), Graduate School of Research Centre of Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Assistant Professor (2010-), Faculty of Humanities, University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia
Assistant Professor (2002-2005), Faculty of Arts, University of Niš, Serbia
International scholarships and awards
Postdoctoral Fulbright Fellow, Graduate Center of City University of New York, Spring semester 2018
Fellowship of the Research Agency of State of Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), nov. 2015 - feb. 2016
Post-doctoral fellowship of Austrian Agency for International cooperation in Education and Research (OeAD), Visiting Fellow, Centre for Southeastern European Studies, University of Graz, Austria, Nov. 2013 - Mar. 2014
Robert Bosch Regional Fellowship, New Europe College, Bucharest, Romania, Max Plank Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, 2008.
Ad Futura, Scientific Educational Foundation of Republic of Slovenia, Fellowship for Visiting Researchers, 2007-2008
International Library Residence Fellowship, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, New York, University of Chicago, U.S., 2005
Bilateral Fellowship of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Serbia and the Government of the Republic of Slovenia, 2005
Fellowship of the Scientific Research Institute of Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2006-2007
Fellowship of the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center for Balkan studies, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, U.S., 2006
Awards
2018, Danubius Mid-Career Award by the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Research and the Institute for Central Europe and Danube Region
2007, Barbara Bernard Smith Award of the International Council of Traditional Music (ICTM) for emerging scholar (advanced graduate student or young scholar with recently awarded doctorate)
Associations and societies
European Seminar in Ethnomusicology (Executive Secretary)
Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) (Member of the council)
International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM), study group Music and Minorities, Music and Gender, Applied Ethnomusicology, Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe
International Association for Southeast European Anthropology (InASEA)
Association for Culture Studies (ACS)
Research interests
Music, sound and politics in socialist and post-socialist societies; memory, affect, and activism; musical labour and political econnomy.