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Ahona Palchoudhari is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology. Ahona's research asks: What kind of anthropological object is music? Is the opposite of the "classical" the “folk”? This presentation is based on twenty months of ethnographic research conducted amongst neighbouring communities of paddy-cultivators, potters and musicians in the Bankura district of rural West Bengal; and amongst aspirants of Indian classical music in the city of Kolkata. It traces concepts of raag, taal, gharana and riyaaz from Indian aesthetic theory across milieus of seasonal ritual, mediatized practice, political upheaval, and domestic relation to ask how musical form might sharpen and rearrange the lived experience of resonant ecologies. 

Chaired by: Finnian M.M. Gerety, Religious Studies

Graduate Student Seminar