Books by Eben Graves
How do the temporal features of sacred music affect social life in South Asia? Due to new time co... more How do the temporal features of sacred music affect social life in South Asia? Due to new time constraints in commercial contexts, devotional musicians in Bengal have adapted longstanding features of musical time linked with religious practice to promote their own musical careers.
The Politics of Musical Time traces a lineage of singers performing a Hindu devotional song known as kīrtan in the Bengal region of India over the past century to demonstrate the shifting meanings and practices of devotional performance. Focusing on padābalī kīrtan, a type of devotional sung poetry that uses long-duration forms and combines song and storytelling, Eben Graves examines how expressions of religious affect and political belonging linked with the genre become strained in contemporary, shortened performance time frames. To illustrate the political economy of performance in South Asia, Graves also explores how religious performances and texts interact with issues of nationalism, gender, and economic exchange.
Combining ethnography, history, and performance analysis, including videos from the author's fieldwork, The Politics of Musical Time reveals how ideas about the sacred and the modern have been expressed and contested through features of musical time found in devotional performance.
Peer-Reviewed Articles by Eben Graves
Bhakti and Power: Debating India's Religion of the Heart, 2019
This article studies the relationship between the discourse of Bengali cultural nationalism and t... more This article studies the relationship between the discourse of Bengali cultural nationalism and the devotional song genre of padavali kirtan in the early twentieth century. Prominent in the work of padavali kirtan enthusiasts amongst the Bengali elite—the bhadralok—was the promotion of the image of a religiously devout and musically skilled musician, referred to as the sadhaka kirtaniya. The advancement of the sadhaka kirtaniya as a cultural template was based on non-cosmopolitan, male performers of the genre who began to perform and teach in Kolkata at the turn of the twentieth century. The focus on the musical skill and devotional attributes of these musicians was part of a process of classicisation that worked to distance Bengali kirtan from a group of female, courtesan singers who performed in a popular devotional musical style known as dhap kirtan. Female performers of padavali kirtan from elite families did emerge later in the twentieth century, as they adopted the discursive and performative markers of the male sadhaka kirtaniya as a means of legitimising public female performance. A distinguishing characteristic of the musical style of the sadhaka kirtaniya was the use of large meters (tals) that were performed at slow tempos, a musical style brought to Kolkata with rural, male musicians at the turn of the twentieth century. This style came to stand in distinction to the smaller meters and text-based singing style of the female, courtesan dhap kirtan singers during this period.
In the past two decades, professional performers of a genre of Hindu devotional song known as pad... more In the past two decades, professional performers of a genre of Hindu devotional song known as padāvalī-kīrtan have begun to introduce a variety of promotional techniques to further their careers. Advertising, media production, and transformations of musical style are but some examples of this trend. These recent changes have spurred journalists, kīrtan scholars, and kīrtan instructors in urban Kolkata to suggest that professional kīrtan musicians are guilty of transforming the musical style of this genre in order to attract new audiences, while further subverting the genre's association with themes of social prosperity. In this article, I study the social and musical values that surround this debate, as I argue that these negative critiques overlook the ways that money, music, and religious belief are intertwined in the lives of present-day musicians. Theories of musical commodification, neoliberal entrepreneurship, and the influence of capitalism on musical style are considered as I focus on a specific musical style of padāvalī-kīrtan that uses large meters and slow tempos in performance.
Dissertation by Eben Graves
This dissertation studies the devotional musical genre of padāvalī-kīrtan from the early twentiet... more This dissertation studies the devotional musical genre of padāvalī-kīrtan from the early twentieth century until the present in the Indian state of West Bengal. In particular,
Reviews and Reference Publications by Eben Graves
Latin American Music Review, Volume 35, Number 2, Fall-Winter 2015
Teaching Documents by Eben Graves
In what ways does the visual and musical archive of Hindi film--commonly referred to as "Bollywoo... more In what ways does the visual and musical archive of Hindi film--commonly referred to as "Bollywood"--reflect and constitute social life in South Asia and beyond? This course takes this broad question as its starting point as we consider relationships between the popular cinema of Bombay (Mumbai) and South Asian history, culture, and politics. A study of Hindi film music will serve as a foundation for discussions on the nature of "popular" culture and how we can fruitfully study it in an academic context, as we consider debates regarding popular culture's role in society. Is popular culture only reflective of commercial interests? Or does it play an instrumental function in driving political and social change? A further focus of this course will be to consider various methods of analyzing musical media. We will study approaches that music and film scholars use to analyze music's role in cinematic narratives, and use these discussions to make our own critique of how music is used in Hindi cinema production.
Conference Presentations by Eben Graves
Associated with diverse spiritual traditions of North India, kirtan is a genre performed in such ... more Associated with diverse spiritual traditions of North India, kirtan is a genre performed in such a variety of forms (Slawek 1996, Beck 2014) to raise questions about its definition, history and distinguishing features. In particular, being kirtan a core practice among majority and minority communities, a musicological debate on its origins entails a careful analysis of the religious narratives and political discourses involved. This panel offers a critical and comparative perspective on three kirtan practices across North India, from Bengal to Vraj and Punjab, in ancient and modern times. Through the case studies of the Padavali, Vaisnava and Gurbani kirtan traditions, the presenters discuss the distinct functions and spiritual contexts of the genre, challenging the concept of an archetype with variants, a model that has influenced the perception of kirtan as a unified genre. The analytical framework is based on historical and ethnographic investigation, intertwined with a musicological approach. While the examination of kirtan practices among Hindu and Sikh communities illustrates how parallel traditions developed independently in relation to specific liturgies, the musicological analysis serves as the key to acknowledging their distinctive forms. In addition, the comparative study of the structure of the performances and their musical settings reveals uncharted connections with other genres, providing scholars with a new terrain on which to examine Indian music.
Papers by Eben Graves
Journal of Hindu Studies, 2017
This article studies the relationship between the discourse of Bengali cultural nationalism and t... more This article studies the relationship between the discourse of Bengali cultural nationalism and the devotional song genre of padavali kirtan in the early twentieth century. Prominent in the work of padavali kirtan enthusiasts amongst the Bengali elite—the bhadralok—was the promotion of the image of a religiously devout and musically skilled musician, referred to as the sadhaka kirtaniya. The advancement of the sadhaka kirtaniya as a cultural template was based on non-cosmopolitan, male performers of the genre who began to perform and teach in Kolkata at the turn of the twentieth century. The focus on the musical skill and devotional attributes of these musicians was part of a process of classicisation that worked to distance Bengali kirtan from a group of female, courtesan singers who performed in a popular devotional musical style known as dhap kirtan. Female performers of padavali kirtan from elite families did emerge later in the twentieth century, as they adopted the discursive and performative markers of the male sadhaka kirtaniya as a means of legitimising public female performance. A distinguishing characteristic of the musical style of the sadhaka kirtaniya was the use of large meters (tals) that were performed at slow tempos, a musical style brought to Kolkata with rural, male musicians at the turn of the twentieth century. This style came to stand in distinction to the smaller meters and text-based singing style of the female, courtesan dhap kirtan singers during this period.
Ethnomusicology, 2017
In the past two decades, professional performers of a genre of Hindu devotional song known as pad... more In the past two decades, professional performers of a genre of Hindu devotional song known as padāvalī-kīrtan have begun to introduce a variety of promotional techniques to further their careers. Advertising, media production, and transformations of musical style are but some examples of this trend. These recent changes have spurred journalists, kīrtan scholars, and kīrtan instructors in urban Kolkata to suggest that professional kīrtan musicians are guilty of transforming the musical style of this genre in order to attract new audiences, while further subverting the genre’s association with themes of social prosperity. In this article, I study the social and musical values that surround this debate, as I argue that these negative critiques overlook the ways that money, music, and religious belief are intertwined in the lives of present-day musicians. Theories of musical commodification, neoliberal entrepreneurship, and the influence of capitalism on musical style are considered as ...
Oxford Music Online, 2015
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-No... more This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (cc-by-nc 4.0).
Uploads
Books by Eben Graves
The Politics of Musical Time traces a lineage of singers performing a Hindu devotional song known as kīrtan in the Bengal region of India over the past century to demonstrate the shifting meanings and practices of devotional performance. Focusing on padābalī kīrtan, a type of devotional sung poetry that uses long-duration forms and combines song and storytelling, Eben Graves examines how expressions of religious affect and political belonging linked with the genre become strained in contemporary, shortened performance time frames. To illustrate the political economy of performance in South Asia, Graves also explores how religious performances and texts interact with issues of nationalism, gender, and economic exchange.
Combining ethnography, history, and performance analysis, including videos from the author's fieldwork, The Politics of Musical Time reveals how ideas about the sacred and the modern have been expressed and contested through features of musical time found in devotional performance.
Peer-Reviewed Articles by Eben Graves
Dissertation by Eben Graves
Reviews and Reference Publications by Eben Graves
Teaching Documents by Eben Graves
Conference Presentations by Eben Graves
Papers by Eben Graves
The Politics of Musical Time traces a lineage of singers performing a Hindu devotional song known as kīrtan in the Bengal region of India over the past century to demonstrate the shifting meanings and practices of devotional performance. Focusing on padābalī kīrtan, a type of devotional sung poetry that uses long-duration forms and combines song and storytelling, Eben Graves examines how expressions of religious affect and political belonging linked with the genre become strained in contemporary, shortened performance time frames. To illustrate the political economy of performance in South Asia, Graves also explores how religious performances and texts interact with issues of nationalism, gender, and economic exchange.
Combining ethnography, history, and performance analysis, including videos from the author's fieldwork, The Politics of Musical Time reveals how ideas about the sacred and the modern have been expressed and contested through features of musical time found in devotional performance.