This course introduces the cultural study of music and performance through a specific focus on South, West and Southeast Asian music and society. Modern perspectives on music, including the study of ethnomusicology, are redefining ideas of place,tradition and cultural meaning as part of an interrelated global history. But although this course is geographically diverse, it will relate this broader perspective through close attention to several distinct South and Southeast Asian styles. We will focus in turn on Hindustani and Karnatic musical traditions of India, Bollywood film song, Sufi qawwali performance and religious practices of Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as Javanese and Balinese gamelan orchestras. Each of these genres and musiccultures will be described locally – in society, religion, politics, and identity - and in context of postcolonial, technological, and transnational development. Points of discussion will include the changing balance of traditional and modern ideas of music in systems of learning, performance techniques, ways of writing and recording music, and the social concept of music itself. No previous background in music is required.

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