Tejaswini Niranjana

This course aims to examine the way music features in different disciplines, and to trace some of the central preoccupations of the study and practice of music in different contexts. We will also explore how older discourses of culture located music, and ask how cultural studies today might investigate those locations. While we will read texts from diverse sources and traditions, the key questions we ask will be anchored by the attempt to fashion a new vocabulary in which to discuss music in India in particular and the contemporary non-west in general.

Students are encouraged to participate in the assembling and curating of the musical material for the course, which will be hosted on a web platform.

Session 1: Disciplines

Introduction: Music in Cultural Studies

Gary Tomlinson, “Musicology, Anthropology, History” (View link here)
Antoine Hennion, “Music and Mediation: Towards a New Sociology of Music” (View link here) 
Sanjay Srivastava, “Voice, Gender and Space in Time of Five-Year Plans: The Idea of Lata Mangeshkar”(View link here)
Ashwini Deshpande, “Lata Mangeshkar: The Singer and the Voice” (View link here)

Session 2: Language

Downing A.Thomas, “Music and Language”; “Origins” (View link here) http://www.cscsarchive.org/dataarchive/textfiles/textfile.2010-08-13.4949606940/file
Lakshmi Subramaniam, “The Tamil Isai Iyakkam and the Contest for Custodianship” (View link here) 

Session 3: Voice

Tejaswini Niranjana, “Take a little Chutney…: The Body in the Voice” (View link here)
Vidya Rao, “Thumri as Feminine Voice” (Link found here).
Amanda Weidman, “Gender and the Politics of Voice” (Link found here)
Marcia J Citron, “Feminist Approaches to Musicology” )(Link found here)

Session 4: Technology

Gerry Farrell, “The Gramophone comes to India” (View link here)
Adrian McNeil, “Making Modernity Audible: Sarodiyas and the Early Recording Industry” (View link here)
John Mowitt, “The Sound of Music in the Era of its Electronic Reproducibility” (View link here)

Session 5: Codification and Notation

Interview with Gangubai Hangal (audio recording)
Ernest Clements, from Introduction to the Study of Indian Music (View link here)
S.M.Tagore, from Hindu Music Link found here
V.N.Bhatkhande, A Short Historical Survey of the Music of Upper India (View link here) 

Session 6: Patronage and Consumption

Jacques Attali, “Representing” (from Noise) Link found here
East Asia – the music effect: Japanese fan clubs; K-pop phenomenon

Hayami, Yoko; Tanabe, Akio; Tokita-Tanabe, Yumiko, "Gender and modernity : perspectives from Asia and the Pacific" (189-217p. 292-296p.) Link found here 

Session 7: Towards a new cultural study of music

Janaki Bakhle, “The Contradictions of Music’s Modernity” Link found here
Amanda Weidman, “A Writing Lesson: Musicology and the Birth of the Composer” Link found here
Tejaswini Niranjana, “Transported by Song: Music and Cultural Labour in Dharwad” Link Found here

Films: Umrao Jaan, Documentary on Gangubai Hangal, Buena Vista Social Club, Jahaji Music – screenings to be scheduled.

Workshop: A two-day workshop on Hindustani music will be conducted by Prof. Amlan Dasgupta, Jadavpur University, alongside the course. Tentative dates: Nov.11-13, 2010.

Readings for Workshop:

Joep Bor,Three Important Essays on Hindustani Music. (link found here)

Women and Music: The case of North India.(Link found here)

Adrian McNeil, Messing with Mirasis: Some thoughts of hereditary musicians in Hindustani music.(Link found here)

Adrian McNeil, Courtesans,Military Musicians and Shi'a Ideology in Nineteenth Century Lucknow.(link found here)

 Course requirements: One interactive response to internet-based activity; one term paper; class presentations.