Music and Empire

South & Southeast Asia, c. 1750-1950

Abstract

Music and Empire is a graduate seminar focusing on South and Southeast Asia in the transition to and through European colonialism c. 1750–1950. The seminar is conceptually innovative, designed to remove the colonial-era split between musicology and ethnomusicology by focusing on the histories of Asian and mixed-race performing arts in the eastern Indian Ocean and South China Sea, rather than on Orientalist representations of “Asia” in Western music or European music in its Asian colonies. It aims to break down conceptual, geographical, and chronological barriers, by 1) exploring historical work on the music, dance, and sound of the region under colonialism, 2) from before European colonial rule to the point of decolonization, 3) using secondary literature that draws primarily on Asian-language sources, in parallel with European-language sources. The seminar also aims to introduce students to the powerful theoretical lens of the “paracolonial.” Paracolonial denotes “alongside” and “beyond” the colonial, and refers to systems of musical knowledge and practice that operated alongside and beyond the colonial state throughout this period. These systems were frequently facilitated by colonial infrastructures, technologies, and presence in South and Southeast Asia, but were not generally dependent upon colonial epistemologies. Rather, they coexisted in differing relations and tensions with colonial thought and action regarding music, “noise,” and their place in society. Thinking music history through a paracolonial frame opens up much more room for the autonomous agency of South and Southeast Asian music makers and listeners within the conditions of possibility they were afforded under colonial rule c.1750–1950.