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Gavilan College &
California Community Colleges

The California Community Colleges system comprises the largest system of higher education in the United States and third largest in the world with 2 million students attending 116 colleges. I'm a professor of anthropology at Gavilan College and past president of the statewide Faculty Association of California Community Colleges. Gavilan College welcomes Dreamers, AB540, and DACA students.

I research and teach a variety of topics, including the relationship between culture and power, globalization, political economy, popular culture, social justice, performance, decolonization, intersectionality (race, class, gender, and religion), Yorùbá Studies, and public higher education.

Education

BA in Anthropology | Brown University
MA & PhD in Anthropology | UC Santa Cruz

Research

My research in the California Community Colleges investigates the effects of decades of disinvestment from public education in the United States and solutions for building more equitable community colleges for the California public and beyond. My recent research in Nigeria examines the negotiation of gender, Indigenous culture, and Islam through the lens of Yorùbá popular musical genres.

​I have conducted research with performing artists in southwestern Nigeria for over 20 years and was granted an honorary chieftaincy title in Èrìn-Òṣun, recognizing decades of collaborative work within the community. My book, Yorùbá Bàtá Goes Global: Artists, Culture Brokers, and Fans, documents how practitioners of a 600-year-old plus performance tradition, bàtá, have strategically recast themselves as traditional performers in a global market.

Select Publications | California Community Colleges

A Unified Faculty Model: The Remedy for Decades of Failed Education "Reform" in the California Community Colleges
(forthcoming)
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How the Austerity Agenda Disappeared Over a Million California Community College Students: A Faculty Perspective
Teachers College Record (2024, vol 127, no. 6, 1-18)

​Undoing the Overreliance on Part-time Faculty Could Reverse Decline of California Community Colleges
EdSource (Spring 2024)

Educational Philanthrocapitalists: Threats to Faculty, Students, and Democracy (video) (PDF)
Webinar (Spring 2023)

​Civic and Community Engagement at Gavilan College
Presentation (Spring 2023)

The California Community Colleges Need Your Support
FACCC blog (Spring 2022)

Resisting Decades of "Reform" Movement Disruption in the California Community Colleges
FACCCTS (Spring 2021)

Calbright Funds Would Be Better Spent on Health Benefits for Part-time Community College Faculty
EdSource (Spring 2020)

Making Progress Toward Part-time Faculty Equity
FACCCTS (Spring 2020)

Select Publications | Nigeria

Tundé Kelani, Èṣù of Nigerian Cinema: Yorùbá Aesthetic Formation, Tradition, and Morality
The Cinema of Tunde Kelani: Aesthetics, Theatricalaities and Visual Performance (2021, 20-38)

Allow Peace to Reign: Musical Genres of Fújì and Islamic Allegorize Nigerian Unity During the Era of Boko Haram
Yearbook for Traditional Music (2020, vol. 52, 1-22)

Fújì: Indigenous and Islamic Popular Music Fusions in Nigeria
Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Sub-Saharan Africa Genres (2019, 145-151)

Being Àyàn in a Modernizing Nigeria: A Multi-Generational Perspective
The Yorùbá God of Drumming: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Wood That Talks (2015, 192-215)

A Political Economy of Lifestyle and Aesthetics: Yorùbá Artists Produce and Transform Popular Culture
Research in African Literatures (​2012, vol 43, no. 4, 128-146)

Strategic Collaborations Between Nigerians and Germans: The Making of a Yorùbá Culture Movement
​Development, Modernism and Modernity in Africa (2012, 131-145)

Làmídì Àyánkúnlé
Dictionary of African Biography (2011, 307-309)

Performing Pop Tradition in Nigeria: From Yorùbá Bàtá to Bàtá Fúji
Africans and the Politics of Popular Culture (2009, 133-164)

Building Status and Overseas Networks: Erin-Osun Artists Manage Devaluation
Money Struggles and City Life: Devaluation in Ibadan and Other Urban Centers in Southern Nigeria (2002, 221-237)

Select Publications | Ethnography

The University of Chicago Press

Yorùbá Bàtá Goes Global:
​Artists, Culture Brokers, and Fans

Responding to growing international interest in the Yorùbá culture of southwestern Nigeria, practitioners of bàtá—a centuries-old drumming, dancing, and singing tradition—have recast themselves as traditional performers in a global market. As the Nigerian market for ritual bàtá has been declining, international opportunities for performance have grown. Debbie Klein’s lively ethnography explores this disjunction, revealing the world of bàtá artists and the global culture market that helps to sustain their art. Yorùbá Bàtá Goes Global describes the dramatic changes and reinventions of traditional bàtá performance in recent years. Klein explores how reinvigorated performing ensembles are beginning to parlay success on the world stage into increased power and status within Nigeria.