Faculty Seminar | Choral Voices: Ethnographic Imaginations of Sound and Sacrality

This week’s faculty seminar will feature a talk by Dr. Sebanti Chatterjee about her monograph – “Choral Voices: Ethnographic Imaginations of Sound and Sacrality” – that was published last month by Bloomsbury. Prof. (Dr.) Atreyee Majumder will be the discussant.

About the speaker:

Dr. Sebanti Chatterjee, Academic Fellow, NLSIU.
Sebanti is a cultural anthropologist with an interest in Sound Studies, Religious Studies, and Gender Studies. She earned her doctorate degree in Sociology from the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University. Her areas of interest are anthropology of sound, visual documentation of cultural practices, research on gender violence and labour settings.

Abstract:

Choral Voices: Ethnographic Imaginations of Sound and Sacrality is about sacred and secular choirs in Goa and Shillong across churches, seminaries, schools, auditoriums, classrooms, reality TV shows, and festivals. Voice and genre emerge as social objects annotated by tradition, nostalgia, and innovation. Piety literally and metaphorically shapes the Christian lifeworld, predominantly those belonging to the Presbyterian and Catholic denominations. Indigeneity structures the political and cultural motifs in the making of the Christian musical traditions. Located at the intersection of Sociology, Anthropology, and Ethnomusicology, the choral voices emplace ‘affect’ and the visual-aural dispatch. Thus, sonic spectrum holds space for indigenous and global musicality. (Source: Bloomsbury)