- Gregor Tomc
Gregor Tomc (born
3 February 1952 ) is aSlovenia nsociologist ,musician andactivist . In the late 1970s and 1980s, he was member of the famous Slovenianpunk rock band "Pankrti ".Biography
Tomc was born in
Ljubljana , Slovenia, then part of theSocialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . He is the younger half-brother of the famous columnist and historianAlenka Puhar . He spent his high school years inNew York City , where he became a fan ofBob Dylan and developed an interest inrock'n'roll music. He studied sociology at theUniversity of Ljubljana . In 1977 he founded, together with his friendPero Lovšin , thepunk rock band "Pankrti ". He wrote almost all the lyrics of the group and for for ten years he worked as their unofficial manager. Under the impression of theHelsinki Accords , he founded the association People for a Free Society in order to promote the notion of personal freedoms in thesocialist society in Slovenia.In 1982, he became a researcher in the Institute for Sociology of the University of Ljubljana, where he was the co-worker of the famous philosopher
Slavoj Žižek . He wrote in many Slovenian alternative and critical magazines, such as "Problemi ", "Nova revija " and "Mladina ". During theSlovenian Spring (1988–1992), Tomc was active in many political andcivil society organizations participating in thedemocratization process in Slovenia. In the first free elections in 1990 he unsucessfully ran for the Slovenian Parliament as an independent candidate.Since the 1990s, he has been working as a lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana. During all this period, he wrote essays and columns on contemporary political and social issues. In 2006, he was elected to the Ljubljana
city council on the List of Zoran Janković. He is currently an advisor for culture to the mayor of Ljubljana Zoran Janković.Since 2004, Tomc has been an outspoken critic of the cultural policies of the current centre-right Slovenian government led by
Janez Janša .Work
Gregor Tomc was, together with
Frane Adam , one of the first Slovenian and Yugoslav sociologist to study the phenomena of contemporary social movements, with an emphasis of youthsubcultures . He later turned to the study ofcognitive psychology .Major works
*"Od Poljske do Pol Pota" ("From
Poland toPol Pot ". Maribor, 1983);
*Druga Slovenija : zgodovina mladinskih gibanj na Slovenskem v 20. stoletju ("The Other Slovenia : History of Youth Movements in theSlovene Lands in the 20th Century". Ljubljana, 1989);
*"Profano : kultura v modernem svetu" ("Profane : Culture in the Modern World". Ljubljana, 1994);
*"Small Societies in Transition: the Case of Slovenia : Transformation Processes in a Small Post-Socialist Society" (co-editor withFrane Adam . Ljubljana, 1994);
*"Šesti čut : družbeni svet v kognitivni znanosti" ("The Sixth Sense : The Social World in Cognitive Science". Ljubljana, 2000);
*"Mentalna mašina : možgani kot organski motor na duševni pogon" ("Mental Machine: the Brains as an Organic Engine on Mental Fuel". Ljubljana, 2005).See also
*
Punk rock in Yugoslavia
*New Wave music in Yugoslavia
*Slovenian music Sources
* [http://www.slovenskapomlad.si/2?id=18&highlight=gregor%20tomc Profile on the webportal Slovenian Spring]
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