Welcome!
Mark Slobin is the Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music Emeritus at Wesleyan University and the author or editor of many books, on Afghanistan and Central Asia, eastern European Jewish music, film music, American music, and ethnomusicology theory, two of which have received the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award: "Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World" and "Tenement Songs: Popular Music of the Jewish Immigrants.” He has been President of the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Society for Asian Music. He retired in 2016 after 45 years at Wesleyan and lives in Manhattan.
This website has three sections:
Afghanistan contains my 2003 site that was taken down by Wesleyan University in 2020, plus better versions of the 1967-72 field materials: slides and super8 footage.
Writings collects scattered articles and unpublished lectures, arranged in five topic areas: Comparative, Film, American, Jewish, and Afghanistan.
Drawings is just for fun- I started ink drawing in retirement (2016) and it’s been an absorbing and rewarding hobby.
Regarding the Afghanistan material on this website, as of September 1, 2021, the world it describes has gone again into eclipse after a brief period of clear cultural skies. That day witnessed the first Taliban assassination of a folk musician, in Baghlan Province.
The Taliban are not the first to murder musicians; I heard accounts decades ago of the Communists killing collaborators cited here. Nor is Afghanistan alone in silencing musicians.
It is a worldwide scourge. See freemuse.org for ongoing bulletins and reports.
This website would not have been possible without Matthew Stein, friend and former student, who got the domain and set up this website, for which I am deeply grateful. Additionally, thanks to Anya Shatilova for help with the Afghan photos.