Svanibor Pettan is a visiting professor at the University of California Berkeley in the Spring semester 2019 and teaches the course Music and Minorities in Europe. Otherwise, he is professor and chair in ethnomusicology at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His academic degrees are from the universities in Croatia, Slovenia, and the United States, while his fieldwork sites include former Yugoslav lands, Australia, Egypt, Norway, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and the USA. The prevalent themes in his publications are music, politics and war, minorities, multiculturalism, gender, and applied ethnomusicology. Besides books and articles, he presents his ideas in other formats (CD, CD-ROM, picture exhibition, film). Among his recent publications are the documentary with study-guide Kosovo Through the Eyes of Local Romani (Gypsy) Musicians and the just-released (February 2019) three volumes of The Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology, which he co-edited with Jeff Todd Titon.
Dr Pettan was a visiting professor at a dozen universities in Asia, Europe and North America and gave some 90 invited lectures worldwide. He is past Secretary General and current Vice-president of the International Council for Traditional Music, founder of its Study group on applied ethnomusicology and Chairperson of its Study group on music and minorities.