The Changing Form of Memory: Poems, Stories, Pamphlets, Songs By Dr Richard Williams Tuesday 5 October 2021, 6.30-8.30 pm
How do songs and poems connect to modern ideas about history? In this presentation, I explore how the story of Madanmohan, the god of Bishnupur in West Bengal, has been told and re-told through poetry, songs, and administrative documents, ranging from eighteenth-century chronicles through to “folk” songs in 2019. Looking at the connections between these different tellings sheds light on how the same local histories have been narrated in different contexts over the centuries.
Richard David Williams is Senior Lecturer in Music and South Asian Studies at SOAS University of London. A cultural historian of South Asia, his research brings music and sound studies into conversation with the study of religion and Indian cultural history. He is currently finishing a book on Hindustani classical music in colonial India, which explores the musical connections between north India and Bengal over the 18th and 19th centuries. His wider work has explored Rajput culture in the early modern period, the history of emotions, popular music in Pakistan, and the place of music in Hindu theology. His research languages are Hindi, Brajbhasha, Bengali, Urdu, and Maithili.
Senior Lecturer in Music and South Asian Studies (SOAS), University of London
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