Research

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: http://www.pangduredance.wordpress.com.

Publications

Films

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 Articles

Music, Sound, and the Sacred (edited special issue of Religions)

“Revolution and Reality Shows: Voice of Nepal, Chham Chhami, and Biplav’s CPNM.” Indian Theatre Journal 6, “Reality TV in South Asia: Performance, Negotiation, Imagination.” (forthcoming 2022)

“Raktim’s Red Lantern: Embodying Cultural Revolution in Nepali Dance.” Asian Theatre Journal (forthcoming 2021)

“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

“Music Analog, Digital, and Embodied: Circulation in Rural Nepal.” In Jayson Beaster-Jones and Kariann Goldschmitt, eds. Oxford Handbook of Global Music Industries. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (under review).

“Love, Politics, and Life Between Village and City in Nepali Lok Dohori.” In Zoe Sherinian and Sarah Morelli, eds. Music, Dance, and Everyday Life in South Asia. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. (under review).

“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. Nachna Jaana Paam. The Record. August 30, 2019.

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

Encyclopedia article. “Caste”. In Sage International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture, pp. 473-475.

Book Review. Coralynn Davis, Maithil Women’s Tales: Storytelling on the Nepal-India Border. Himalaya 38(1), 2018, pp. 209-212.

Book Review. Richard Widdess, Dapha: Sacred Singing in a South Asian City. Music, Performance, and Meaning in Bhaktapur, Nepal. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013. Ethnomusicology Forum 25(1), 2016, pp. 136-138.

Book Review. Dhana Hughes, Violence, Torture, and Memory in Sri Lanka: Life After Terror. London: Routledge. Journal of Contemporary Asia. 2014, pp. 565-567.

Book Review. Brian Diettrich, Jane Freeman Moulin, and Michael Webb, Music in Pacific Island Cultures. (Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Music and Letters 94(3), 2013, pp. 563-565.

Book Review. Raymond Ammann, Sounds of Secrets: Field Notes on Ritual Music and Musical Instruments on the Islands of Vanuatu. KlangKulturStudien 7. Zurich and Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2012. Music and Letters 94:1, 2013, pp. 198-200.

Album Review. Alejandro Sanchez-Samper, producer. Nepali Ho! Released on Bandcamp, November 2011. Ethnomusicology 57:1, 2013, pp. 155-158.