Contact
+386 1 2411 326
david.verbuc@ff.uni-lj.si
Cabinet
536F
Department of Musicology
Asst. Prof. Dr. David Verbuč
David Verbuč is one of the most prominent representatives of the new generation of Slovenian ethnomusicologists, who are dedicated to researching various forms of traditional and popular music in Slovenia and abroad. Since 2025, he has been teaching ethnomusicology and popular music classes at the Department of Musicology of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. Before that, he lectured at the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University in Prague (2014 to 2025).
After completing his undergraduate studies at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, David Verbuč first independently researched contemporary forms of village music in the Upper Savinja Valley in north Slovenia and published several scholarly articles (and one CD) on the subject. In 2008, he went on to pursue postgraduate studies in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Davis. He received his PhD in 2014 on the topic of DIY musical spaces and scenes in the US. Subsequently, he issued this work in a book titled DIY House Shows and Music Venues in the US: Ethnographic Explorations of Place and Community (Routledge, 2021). In addition, he has published numerous scholarly articles in established international scientific journals, including American Music, Communication and the Public, Ethnomusicology Forum, Glasnik Slovenskega etnološkega društva, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Journal of World Popular Music, Lidé mesta / Urban People, and Traditiones.
David Verbuč is dedicated to interdisciplinary and ethnographic research, combining critical theory, cultural studies, popular music studies, ethnomusicology, sociocultural anthropology, cultural geography, and ethnographic, historical, and archival research. In his scholarly work, he focuses on the following topics: analysis of economic relations pertinent to the establishment of musical communities, theoretical discussion of ethnographic (and other) methodological approaches, ethnographic study of DIY musical places and popular music scenes in the US, ethnographic and autoethnographic study of the relationship between folk and popular, and rural and urban musics in Slovenia during socialism and post-socialism, and archival and ethnographic research of Roma and Sinti musicians in north Slovenia, particularly in relation to interactions between Roma/Sinti and the state, market, and society. At the Department of Musicology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, he teaches the following courses: Introduction to Ethnomusicology, Musics of the World: Anthropology of Music, Popular Music, Applied Ethnomusicology: Fieldwork and Musical Ethnography, Ethnomusicology 1: Music and Place/Space, Ethnomusicology 2: Sound, Affect, Commodity (contemporary currents in ethnomusicology), Ethnomusicology 3: Ethnomusicology of Central and Southeastern Europe.
Book
2022. 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 (selection)
2025. “Impediment-, Absence-, and Silence-based Methodology, and the Study of Romani and Sinti Musicians in North Slovenia.” Traditiones 54/2: 29-52.
2025 [coathor with Arsène Werlen, Cyber Shanahoy in Anonymous]. “A Thrice-experienced Clubnight: Three Ethnographic Readings of a Clubnight in Ankali, Prague, 7 June 2024.” Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture (section From the Floor) 17/1.
2024. “Social Life of Zines and Other DIY Micro-media Constituting American DIY Communities and Scenes.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 53/4: 544–581.
2023. “‘A Whole Society, With Its Own Economic System’: The Reciprocal and Capitalist Configurations of American DIY Music Scenes.” Ethnomusicology Forum 32/1: 5–27.
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 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.” Sound and the Public: A Special Issue of Communication and the Public, uredili Jing Wang in Marina Peterson, 2/4: 284–304.
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.
2013. “From Text to Context: Performance Events in Primož.” V Trapped in Folklore: Studies in Music and Dance Tradition and Their Contemporary Transformations, uredila Drago Kunej in Urša Šivic, 41–62. Berlin: LIT Verlag.
2009. “Contemporary Musical Peasant Traditions in Primož, Slovenia, and the Notion of ‘National Heritage.’” V Voices of the Weak: Music and Minorities, uredila Zuzana Jurková in Lee Bidgood, 131–142. Prague: Slovo21 + Faculty of Humanities of Charles University Prague.
Audio CD
2008. Gorših ljudi na svetu ni: terenski posnetki ljudskih pesmi iz Zgornje Savinjske doline. Dvojna zgoščenka. Mozirje, Ljubljana: Osrednja Knjižnica Mozirje, Glasbenonarodopisni inštitut ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana, in Društvo za raziskovanje popularne glasbe, Ljubljana. Producer and author of field recordings.