Ongoing Projects
Progressive and Revolutionary Song in Nepal
Supported by Fulbright and CAORC-NEH (2018-2019), this project has resulted in the film Singing A Great Dream, several articles, and a book manuscript in progress, on emotions, aspirations, and Nepali progressive song and dance.
Nepali Folk Performance: The Works of Subi Shah
This project, supported by an NEH Scholarly Editions and Translations Grant, will translate six volumes of Subi Shah’s works on Central Nepali folk music, dance, and drama, and publish them with accompanying audio and video recordings of performances. Learn more at the project website: www.pangduredance.wordpress.com.
Publications
Singing a Great Dream: The Revolutionary Songs and Life of Khusiram Pakhrin (2019), with Bhakta Syangtan
What Keeps Us Company: Nepali Popular Music in Bahrain (2010)
Book
Singing Across Divides: Music and Intimate Politics in Nepal. Oxford University Press, 2017.
View media pages for Singing Across Divides
Journal Issues and Articles
Music, Sound, and the Sacred (edited special issue of Religions) 2020.
“Revolution and Reality Shows: Nepal’s CPN and the Media Worlds of Late Capitalism.” Indian Theatre Journal 6, special issue on “Reality TV in South Asia: Performance, Negotiation, Imagination,” eds. Amanda Weidman and Kristen Rudisill, 2022, pp. 25-40.
“Raktim Pariwar’s Red Lanterns: Dance and Cultural Revolution in Nepal.” Asian Theatre Journal 38(2), 2021, pp. 395-423.
“Subi Shah’s Holistic Theory of Nepali Performing Arts: Implications for Research and Teaching.” Jurai Sembah 2(1), 2021, pp. 22-27.
“Making a Living as a Musician in Nepal: Multiple Regimes of Value in a Changing Popular Folk Music Industry.” Himalaya 38(1), 2018, pp. 160-176.
“Ruralising the City: Migration and Viraha in Translocal Nepal.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society special issue on Urban Emotions: Responses to the City c. 1850-1960. Eds. Elizabeth Chatterjee, Sneha Krishnan, and Meghan Robb. 27(4), 2017.
“Music and Cultural Policy in Nepal: Views from Lok Dohori.” European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 48, 2016, pp. 43-76.
“Sounding and Writing a Nepali Public Sphere: The Music and Language of Jhyaure.” Asian Music 46(1), 2015, pp. 3-38.
“Changing the Sound of Nationalism in Nepal: Deuda and the Far West.” South Asian Popular Culture 10(3), 2012, pp. 1-11.
“Singing Dialogic Space Into Being: Communist Language and Democratic Hopes at a Dohori Competition on Radio Nepal.” Studies in Nepali History and Society 15(2), 2010, pp. 297-330.
“May I Elope”: Song Words, Social Status, and Honor among Female Nepali Dohori Singers. Ethnomusicology 54(2), 2010, pp. 257-280.
“Dohori in the New Nepal.” World Literature Today 82(1), 2008, pp. 30-37.
Book Chapters
“The Music Video Industry in Nepal.” In Ajay Gehlawat and Jayson Beaster-Jones, eds. Routledge Handbook of South Asian Cinemas. Routledge. (submitted)
“Music Analog, Digital, and Embodied: Circulation in Rural Nepal.” In Jayson Beaster-Jones and K. Goldschmitt, eds. Oxford Handbook of Global Music Industries. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Forthcoming).
Stirr, Brown, and Rijal. “Embodied Theories of Melody in Nepali Music: A Case Study from Central Dhading.” In Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Nepal and the Himalaya (2022). (Forthcoming).
“Love, Politics, and Life Between Village and City in Nepali Lok Dohori.” In Zoe Sherinian and Sarah Morelli, eds. Music and Dance as Everyday South Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024.
“Subi Shahko Kalamathi Samagra Drishtikon Ra Sthaniya Gyanko Mahattva” [Subi Shah’s Holistic Views on Art and the Importance of Vernacular Knowledge]. In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Conference of the Nepal Folklore Council. Kathmandu: Nepal Lok Barta Parishad, 2023.
Anna Stirr and Bhakta Syangtan. “Narrating a Revolutionary Life: Personal, Political, and Musical Choices in Making Singing A Great Dream.” In Christopher Ballengee, ed. Music, Sound, and Documentary Film in the Global South. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022.
“Lok Dohoriko Parichaya” (Introduction to Lok Dohori). In Smarika: Lok Tatha Dohori Geet Pratisthan Nepalko Sathau Mahadhiveshan (Souvenir: Seventh Convention of the Folk and Dohori Song Academy Nepal). Kathmandu: Lok Tatha Dohori Geet Pratisthan Nepal, 2019.
“Mediating the Migrant Experience: Dukha, Viraha, and Nostalgia in Nepali Lok Dohori Songs.” In Deepak Thapa, ed. Proceedings of the Annual Kathmandu Conference on Nepal and the Himalaya (2015). Kathmandu: Himal Books, 2019.
“Popular Music among Nepalis in Bahrain: Nightclubs, Media, Performance, and Publics.” In David Gellner and Sondra Hausner, eds. Global Nepalis: Religion, Culture, and Community in a New and Old Diaspora. New Delhi, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 188-209.
“Tears for the Revolution: Nepali Musical Nationalism, Emotion, and the Maoist Movement.” In Marie LeComte-Tilouine, ed. Revolution in Nepal. Oxford and New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 367-392.
“Class Love and the Unfinished Transformation of Social Hierarchy in Nepali Communist Songs”. In Robert Adlington, ed. Red Strains: Music and Communism Outside the Communist Bloc. (Proceedings of the British Academy). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 283-298.
“Blue Lake: Tibetan Popular Music, Place, and Fantasies of the Nation.” In Robert Barnett and Ronald Schwartz, eds. Tibetan Modernities: Notes from the Field on Cultural and Social Change (Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of IATS). Leiden: Brill, 2008.
“Dohori on Sajha.com: Music Videos and the Politics of Memory.” In Social Sciences in a Multicultural World: Proceedings of the International Conference, 11-13 December 2006. Kathmandu: Sociological/Anthropological Society of Nepal (SASON) & Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR), 2007.
Journalism
Feature Article. मृत्युसंग नझुक्ने कलाकारहरू. नयाँ पत्रिका, २०२०-१६-०५
Feature Article. Nachna Jaana Paam. The Record. August 30, 2019.
Blog Post. #AsiaNow Speaks With Anna Stirr. Association for Asian Studies. February 2019. Online at https://www.asianstudies.org/asianow-speaks-with-anna-stirr/
Blog Post. Festival Dohori in the Kathmandu Valley. OUPblog. November 14, 2017. Online at https://blog.oup.com/2017/11/festival-dohori-kathmandu-valley/
Blog Post. Village Echoes (And Reverb, And Delay): The drums of Nepal’s rural festivals and the booming speakers of urban dohori restaurants. OUPblog. October 24, 2017. Online at https://blog.oup.com/2017/10/nepal-folk-music-dohori/
Op-ed. In Nepal, lift spirits through music. CNN. May 1, 2015.
Feature Article. Linguistic Diversity in Nepal’s Music Industry. Fair Observer. March 2, 2014.
Reviews, Reports, and Multimedia Publications
Book Review. Andrew Weintraub and Bart Barendregt, eds. Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities. Music and Performing Arts of Asia and the Pacific. Honolulu: UH Press, 2018. MUSICultures. (2021).
Book Review. Dan Bendrups, Singing and Survival: The Music of Easter Island. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Music & Letters. (2020).
Encyclopedia article. “Caste”. In Sage International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture, pp. 473-475.
Book Review. Kiran Narayan, Everyday Creativity: Singing Goddesses of the Himalayan Foothills. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. JRAI 24(2), 2018, pp. 413-414.
Research Report. “Migration, Gender and Nation in Nepali Dohori Performance.” Himalaya 25(1-2), 2008, pp. 43-44.
Unpublished Report. Kathmandu Dohori Restaurant Performers: A Demographic Survey of the Field in 2007.
Online feature. “Damai Music.” Spiny Babbler Online Museum, 2005. [inactive]
Posters
Convergence Culture in Rural Nepal (Oxford Music, Digitization, Mediation Conference 2013)
Dialogic Songs for Intercultural Dialog? Towards post-multiculturalism in post-conflict Nepal (Oxford Humanities Research Showcase 2011)
Other
PhD Dissertation, 2009: Exchanges of Song: Migration, Gender and Nation in Nepali Dohori Performance (Columbia University)
MA Thesis, 2005: Conflict and Confluence: Constructing and Challenging Boundaries at the Ahiri Institute for Indian Classical Music and Dance (Columbia University)
View my research and find related work by fellow researchers at ResearchGate.
Anna M Stirr, Ph.D. 
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