Punjab Sounds

Radha Kapuria is Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Durham University, UK, and the author of Music in Colonial Punjab: Courtesans, Bards, and Connoisseurs, 1800–1947.Vebhuti Duggal is Assistant Professor in Film Studies at the School of Culture and Creative Expressions, Ambedkar University Delhi, and Associate Editor of the journal BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies.

• Foreword by Ira Bhaskar (Professor (retd) of Cinema Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India)1. IntroductionRegioning Sound from South AsiaVebhuti Duggal (Assistant Professor in Film Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi) andRadha Kapuria (Assistant Professor in South Asian History, Durham University)I. Aural Signs of the Region2. One Transnation under a Groove: ‘Chaal’ and the Modern Punjabi SoundscapeGibb Schreffler (Associate Professor of Music at Pomona College, California)3. Sound and Politics of Classical Music in West PunjabG. Ali Shair (Research Fellow in Sociology, University of Warwick)4. Mixing the legends–Changing Representations of Nostalgia in Diasporic Punjabi remix cultureJulia Szivak (Assistant Lecturer,Pazmany Peter Catholic University, Budapest)II. Soundscapes of the Punjab5. Trinjan Audiotopias: Complaint, Desire, and the Bawdy in Punjabi Giddha Performance PracticesRanbir K. Johal (Lecturer, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Vancouver) and Kiran K. Sunar (Assistant Professor in Punjabi Language, Literature, and Culture at the University of British Columbia) 6. Folkloric Poetic Traditions and Gender Relations: An Ethnomusicological Study of Sithnian as a Celebratory Resistance in the PunjabSumera Saleem (Assistant Professor of Literature, University of Sargodha)7. Mapping Punjab Sounds: Two popular Songs about Agriculture and PotterySakoon Singh (Assistant Professor of English, DAV College, Panjab University, Chandigarh) 8. Decoding Loudness: The Punjabi Soundscape in BollywoodShikha Jhingan (Associate Professor in Film Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi) III. Mediating Regional Sound 9. Modernity, Modality, and Meaning: Technological Mediation of Śabad Kīrtan at the Golden TempleJames Kirit Singh (PhD in Ethnomusicology, SOAS, University of London)10. Identity and affect: Exploring technology and the sonic in Dalit Music in PunjabRadhika Kumar (Professor in Political Science, Motilal Nehru College, University of Delhi)11. “Love From India”: YouTube Qawwālī as Affective Solidarity in India-Pakistan RelationsThomas Graves (PhD in Ethnomusicology, Durham University)Afterword: Coda by Virinder Kalra (Professor in Sociology, University of Warwick)AcknowledgmentsIndex

This sonically textured study of Punjab goes beyond a circulation of stereotype and defies monolithic notions of history, region, topology, gender, and human expression. Radha Kapuria and Vebhuti Duggal compile an original set of thoughtful essays where a sensory engagement with the region is infused with deeply vibrant, intertextual narratives that bring a new nuance to our larger understanding of how sound shapes territories and identities.­ –Gurminder K. Bhogal, Catherine Mills Davis Professor in Music, Wellesley College, Massachusetts.Can Punjab as a region be heard, felt, touched, and seen simultaneously through scholarship that focusses on soundscapes and sound studies? Spanning across the historical to the contemporary on YouTube, this interdisciplinary collection of fine and original essays shows us the way and how to do it. Punjab Sounds has much to offer and is a gift to the wider field of enquiry. ­ –Rajinder Dudrah, Professor of Cultural Studies and Creative Industries, Birmingham City University.Suturing the mythic and the historic, the devotional and the divided, this cross-disciplinary volume attunes us to the worlding possibility of sound. It is also a pioneering performance that refigures region – Punjab in this case – via its translocally audible and creaturely forms.–Omar Kasmani, Guest Lecturer in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin.Punjab Sounds is a seminal contribution that reframes debates on region formation within South Asia, unravels some of the conceptual straitjackets, and suggests the potential for rethinking the region through sonic practices and affects. Spanning several key developments across colonial and post-colonial South Asia and exploring myriad themes, technologies, sound objects and musical forms, each chapter provides substantive methodological insights into researching sound practices and region formation. It brings into colloquy the fields of ethnomusicology, sound studies, film and media studies, performance studies, history, and religious studies. The book will be an undeniably valuable resource for students and scholars of these fields and will appeal to a wide range of readers in higher education and the general public alike. –Bindu Menon, Associate Professor in Media Studies, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.