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CO-SPONSORED EVENTS HELD AT THE HUMANITIES CENTER
Translated Tunes: Negotiations of Space, Genre, and Identity in Kirta
Sunday May 05, 2013 | 08:00 AM -06:30 PM | Stanford Humanities Center Board Room
The word “kirtan” has been in currency in Indian languages for many centuries. Despite the stability of “kirtan” as signifier, the meanings and practices of kirtan move beneath (and with) our feet in myriad ways. In Tamil-speaking areas of South India, kirtan is a song genre related to the classical genre of kriti; in Maharashtra and Bengal, kirtan refers to a combination of song and storytelling; and in Hindi-speaking North India, kirtan refers to sung chants of God’s names. What these divergent meanings share is an investment in devotion through embodied song…but what songs and what devotional practices? For many, “kirtan” evokes quintessentially Hindu practices, but even that is not a given. The Sikh liturgy is comprised almost entirely of kirtan, and Indian Christians and Jews have incorporated kirtan into their devotional practices for at least a century and a half.
Devotional practice in South Asia is highly regionalized because saints understood that songs in vernacular languages and idioms would increase the accessibility and intelligibility of religion. Despite the ongoing importance of regional religious identities, migration is the norm throughout South Asia, and kirtan is transformed by the cultural negotiations of communities on the move. Marathi kirtan, for example, has moved with communities of Maharashtrians to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and songs by Marathi poet-saints are performed in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Moreover, new technologies and changing political conditions in neoliberal India have resulted in a new set of genre-crossings.
“Translated Tunes” is a weekend of performance, scholarship, and film that addresses how kirtan performers in modern India negotiate place, medium, and identity. We consider how overlapping meanings of kirtan—as both a capacious, trans-regional constellation of practices and as a localized genre—converge to make kirtan a compelling way to perform inherited identities while providing a map toward other identities and modes of performance. As kirtan moves across boundaries of place, identity, and medium, what aspects of language and performance are translated and what aspects remains untranslated? How has the process of translation shaped the complex identities of modern and post-colonial South Asia? Translation theory provides useful conceptual tools for thinking about the multiple consciousnesses of border crossings in literature, and we consider this theory’s applicability for performance studies.
Translated Tunes: Negotiations of Space, Genre, and Identity in Kirta
Sunday May 05, 2013 | 08:00 AM -06:30 PM | Stanford Humanities Center Board Room
The word “kirtan” has been in currency in Indian languages for many centuries. Despite the stability of “kirtan” as signifier, the meanings and practices of kirtan move beneath (and with) our feet in myriad ways. In Tamil-speaking areas of South India, kirtan is a song genre related to the classical genre of kriti; in Maharashtra and Bengal, kirtan refers to a combination of song and storytelling; and in Hindi-speaking North India, kirtan refers to sung chants of God’s names. What these divergent meanings share is an investment in devotion through embodied song…but what songs and what devotional practices? For many, “kirtan” evokes quintessentially Hindu practices, but even that is not a given. The Sikh liturgy is comprised almost entirely of kirtan, and Indian Christians and Jews have incorporated kirtan into their devotional practices for at least a century and a half.
Devotional practice in South Asia is highly regionalized because saints understood that songs in vernacular languages and idioms would increase the accessibility and intelligibility of religion. Despite the ongoing importance of regional religious identities, migration is the norm throughout South Asia, and kirtan is transformed by the cultural negotiations of communities on the move. Marathi kirtan, for example, has moved with communities of Maharashtrians to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and songs by Marathi poet-saints are performed in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Moreover, new technologies and changing political conditions in neoliberal India have resulted in a new set of genre-crossings.
“Translated Tunes” is a weekend of performance, scholarship, and film that addresses how kirtan performers in modern India negotiate place, medium, and identity. We consider how overlapping meanings of kirtan—as both a capacious, trans-regional constellation of practices and as a localized genre—converge to make kirtan a compelling way to perform inherited identities while providing a map toward other identities and modes of performance. As kirtan moves across boundaries of place, identity, and medium, what aspects of language and performance are translated and what aspects remains untranslated? How has the process of translation shaped the complex identities of modern and post-colonial South Asia? Translation theory provides useful conceptual tools for thinking about the multiple consciousnesses of border crossings in literature, and we consider this theory’s applicability for performance studies.
All events take place at Stanford University, unless otherwise noted.
The Calendar of Events lists events sponsored and co-sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center. For a more comprehensive listing of university-wide events, see the Stanford Event Calendar.
The Calendar of Events lists events sponsored and co-sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center. For a more comprehensive listing of university-wide events, see the Stanford Event Calendar.