2025 Three Minute Thesis
Presentation Type
Open Access Poster Presentation
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Abstract
This paper investigates the portrayal of Romani, “gypsy,” people in Western music, with Antonín Dvořák’s song cycle “Gypsy Songs, Op. 55” as a central case study. It explores the view of cultural appropriation as cultural borrowing, examining how this concept intersects with musical exoticism and orientalism, and how these musical traits shaped Dvořák’s portrayal of Bohemian Romani culture. Drawing on historical and socio-musical methodologies, the study analyzes the Bohemian Romani and Hungarian influences in Dvořák’s cycle. It discusses the ecological impact of the Gypsy Songs within its cultural environment and implications for performance reception. By situating Dvořák’s work within broader debates on authorship, authenticity, and representation, this research contributes to ongoing discourse on the ethics of an inevitable, and not always wrong, cultural borrowing in music. Ultimately, it seeks to reassess how nineteenth-century exoticism informs current perspectives on cultural “cancelation” and the evolving moral standards applied to cross-cultural artistic expression.
Start Date
7-11-2025 11:00 AM
End Date
7-11-2025 1:00 PM
Event Host
Graduate Studies, University of Northern Iowa
Faculty Advisor
Alison Altstatt
Department
School of Music
Copyright
©2025 Ana Molano
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Molano, Ana, "Shame on you, Cultural Appropriation! Rethinking Dvořák’s ‘Gypsy Songs, Op. 55" (2025). Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) at UNI. 6.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/tmt/2025/all/6
Additional Files
Ana Molano.mp4 (539914 kB)
tmt-Ana Molano_otter_ai.srt (4 kB)
Closed Captioning SRT File
Shame on you, Cultural Appropriation! Rethinking Dvořák’s ‘Gypsy Songs, Op. 55
This paper investigates the portrayal of Romani, “gypsy,” people in Western music, with Antonín Dvořák’s song cycle “Gypsy Songs, Op. 55” as a central case study. It explores the view of cultural appropriation as cultural borrowing, examining how this concept intersects with musical exoticism and orientalism, and how these musical traits shaped Dvořák’s portrayal of Bohemian Romani culture. Drawing on historical and socio-musical methodologies, the study analyzes the Bohemian Romani and Hungarian influences in Dvořák’s cycle. It discusses the ecological impact of the Gypsy Songs within its cultural environment and implications for performance reception. By situating Dvořák’s work within broader debates on authorship, authenticity, and representation, this research contributes to ongoing discourse on the ethics of an inevitable, and not always wrong, cultural borrowing in music. Ultimately, it seeks to reassess how nineteenth-century exoticism informs current perspectives on cultural “cancelation” and the evolving moral standards applied to cross-cultural artistic expression.
