Music As Meditative Inquiry: Dialogical Reflections on Learning and Composing Indian Classical Music

This dialogical paper explores Ashwani Kumar’s concept of music as meditative inquiry and its implications for teaching, learning, and living. The notion of music as meditative inquiry is rooted in Kumar’s journey of learning, composing, and researching Indian classical music. This paper makes use of an emerging methodological framework called dialogical meditative inquiry (DMI), which has been theorized by Kumar. Due to its emphasis on meditative and holistic listening, DMI goes beyond a usual interview where the intent is to elicit specific information. Through employing DMI to explore Kumar’s ideas regarding music, meditative inquiry, and creativity, this paper engages with the following themes: 1) the role of rigour, discipline, and passion in learning music through the meditative inquiry approach, 2) the pursuit of music for spiritual and meditative exploration as different from using music as a means of entertainment, and 3) the implications of music as meditative inquiry for teaching, learning, and living with particular emphasis on the importance of creative play, experimentation, and originality

Full Issue: An Arts-Based Contemplative Pause Part 2_June 2019

Full PDF of the issue An Arts-Based Contemplative Pause: Part 2. Co-edited by Susan Walsh (guest editor) & Barbara Bicke

Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat: Futurism and Pirate Modernity in South Asian Electronica

Ravi Sundaram’s conception of recycled, or pirate, modernity was first deployed to explain the extralegal circuits of production and consumption of pirated and counterfeit goods, particularly in India. This thesis argues that the production, performance, distribution, and consumption of South Asian electronic music can be read under the specter of an aestheticization of the circuits of pirate modernity. Through sampling, glitching, and remixing artifacts, sometimes with pirated software or counterfeit hardware, South Asian electronica situates itself in youth culture as an underground form of sound. This is a music that concerns itself with futurity and futurism, doubly so by its links to the diaspora and to Afrofuturist readings, and with the physicality of the sound wave. The thesis also suggests a shift in the economic and political import of pirate modernity wrought by this aestheticization, examining how it has been appropriated for profit and mobilized for political use

Dis-Orienting Rhythms: The Politics of the New Asian Dance Music

Blurring the boundaries between academic and cultural production, this book produces a new understanding of the world significance of South Asian culture in multi-racist societies. One of the first sustained attempts to situate such production within the study of race and identity, it uncovers the crucial role that contemporary South Asian dance music has played in the formation of a new urban cultural politics. The book opens by positing new theoretical understandings of South Asian cultural representation that move beyond essentialist ethnicity in the cultural studies literature. Contributors narrate the formation of South Asian expressive culture coming emerging from the highly charged context of UK Black politics. Part three assumes the task of historical recovery, looking at the antecedents of political South Asian musical performance, autonomous anti-racist organising and problems of alliance with the white Left. Part four engages with the movements and translations of cultural productions across the world - not just in Britain or South Asia, but also Canada, North America, Fiji, Malaysia, Australia, West Africa, Europe, but particularly in the fractured spaces of a postcolonial Britain in decline

Full Issue Artizein_December 2021

A full PDF of the themed Artizein: Arts & Teaching Journal issue entitled \u27Stories that Mattered\u27 edited by Peter London

Full Issue Artizein October 2020

Full PDF of the 2020 issue edited by Barbara Bickel with Guest Assistant Editor & Design by Darlene St. George

Postcolonial Matters: Tra gesti politici e scritture poetiche

[Italiano]: Questo volume raccoglie i contributi della giornata di studio “Postcolonial Matters. Tra gesti politici e scritture poetiche”, ospitata dal Dipartimento di Scienze Umane e Sociali dell’Università degli studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” il 14 giugno 2012. Quali sono, oggi, le questioni postcoloniali? E perché il postcoloniale ci importa, ci ri-guarda? Gli autori e le autrici delle scritture qui presentate si confrontano con queste domande a partire da una serie di pratiche materiali (teoria, editoria, a ivismo, ricerca, arte) da essi stessi agite ed esperite. Con contributi di: Francesco Camagni, Alessandra Cianelli, Anna Curcio, Lidia Curti, Beatrice Ferrara, Bülent Küçük & Ceren Özselçuk, Annalisa Piccirillo & Viola Sarnelli, Gabriele Proglio, Nirmal Puwar, Ashwani Sharma & Sanjay Sharma ./[English]: The essays in this volume stem from the workshop “Postcolonial Matters. Between political gestures and poetical writings”, hosted at the Department of Social and Human Sciences of the Università degli studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” on the 14th June 2012. Why does the postcolonial “matter” to the contemporary? What is our concern with the postcolonial today? All contributions reflect on these questions from a very situated standpoint, expanding on a concrete, localised practice (critical theory, editorial practice, political activism, art making, research) with a global relevance. With essays by: Francesco Camagni, Alessandra Cianelli, Anna Curcio, Lidia Curti, Beatrice Ferrara, Bülent Küçük & Ceren Özselçuk, Annalisa Piccirillo & Viola Sarnelli, Gabriele Proglio, Nirmal Puwar, Ashwani Sharma & Sanjay Sharma

Kirtan in the Americas: Music and Spirituality in a Transcultural Whirlpool

Kirtan (Sanskrit: कीर्तन; IAST: Kīrtana) is a broad term referring to various forms of devotional singing commonly done in South Asian traditions. It is a core practice in the Hindu and Sikh faiths that is becoming increasingly popular around the world among people of all ethnicities. Beyond its expected propagation within Hindu and Sikh diasporas, kirtan is also spreading among members of new religious movements such as ISKCON and the 3HO/Sikh Dharma, who may engage in this practice as part of their daily cultivation. Even more broadly, a form of what has been called “neokirtan” has been gaining popularity in the yoga and New Age communities, with several kirtan artists nominated for the Grammy awards over the years. Moreover, in the wake of the mindfulness and yoga movements, there is an emerging engagement of kirtan singers with public healthcare and correctional institutions. Thus, we can say that kirtan is developing as a transnational and transcultural phenomenon. Indeed, the broader cultural implications and deepening social penetration that this practice has achieved over the past five decades suggest that it is attaining permanent status in the world’s religious soundscape. This research explores the practice of kirtan as it has been re-created in the United States, Canada, and Brazil through multi-sided interactions that generate new cultural patterns in an ongoing process of cross-pollination. Approaching kirtan as a type of ‘technology of the self’, this research combines textual, historical, and ethnographic sources to address the questions of how this practice is adopted and adapted in the Americas and how it has been shaping identities, communities, and traditions

Between Universalism and Diversity: Contradictions of Local Cultural Policy in Tower Hamlets and Oldham

In the past two decades, there has been a substantial growth in the importance of cultural policy in the UK. This is most clearly manifest in the increased rhetoric and resources devoted to culture at local government level. Cultural policy is presumed to confer a number of benefits for individuals and communities, addressing issues of urban regeneration, social inclusion, community cohesion and well-being. Social and economic problems are also increasingly discussed in terms of their cultural dimension, especially in relation to 'identity' and 'community'. This thesis argues that there is a tendency in academic literature to understand this 'turn to culture' in terms of economic, profit-seeking motivations. As a result, there is less critical attention paid to other rationales, more specifically a shift in political discourse towards a therapeutic, identity-oriented understanding of subjectivity. One aspect of this is how local government has adopted an understanding of culture as something that can promote the principle of 'diversity', as opposed to the universalist orientation of traditional liberal-humanist cultural policy. This study investigates the development and implementation of cultural strategies in two local authorities: the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and Oldham Metropolitan Borough. The case studies reveal variations in how and why cultural policy develops according to local social, institutional and economic expectations. However, I also demonstrate the persistence of certain contradictions in approach, which arise out of the application of 'diversity' in practice. Ultimately, a major tension exists between the universalist and identity-based approaches to culture and this creates problems in dealing with questions of cultural authority, community engagement and identity. To conclude, there are severe limitations in using cultural policy in this way to achieve a range of social and political objectives

Dis-Orienting Rhythms: The Politics of the New Asian Dance Music

Blurring the boundaries between academic and cultural production, this book produces a new understanding of the world significance of South Asian culture in multi-racist societies. One of the first sustained attempts to situate such production within the study of race and identity, it uncovers the crucial role that contemporary South Asian dance music has played in the formation of a new urban cultural politics. The book opens by positing new theoretical understandings of South Asian cultural representation that move beyond essentialist ethnicity in the cultural studies literature. Contributors narrate the formation of South Asian expressive culture coming emerging from the highly charged context of UK Black politics. Part three assumes the task of historical recovery, looking at the antecedents of political South Asian musical performance, autonomous anti-racist organising and problems of alliance with the white Left. Part four engages with the movements and translations of cultural productions across the world - not just in Britain or South Asia, but also Canada, North America, Fiji, Malaysia, Australia, West Africa, Europe, but particularly in the fractured spaces of a postcolonial Britain in decline