South Asia

United States of America

Harris K. Weston Associate Professor of the Humanities

Harvard University

rwolf@fas.harvard.edu

Music Department
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

phone: 617-495-3188
fax: 617-496-8081

Pakistan, India.

Ethnomusicologist. South Indian Classical (Karnatak/Carnatic) music,
veena; tribal and folk music of India and Pakistan; the Nilgiri Hills;
Ritual music associated with Shi'i (Shi'ah) Islam and Sufism.

Issues:
musical and cultural "style"; constructions of space,
place, and time; phenomenology; Dravidian studies, linguistics; Tamil,
Kota.

Interested in cross-disciplinary work involving music, anthropology,
linguistics, and religion.

Primary Fieldwork: Madurai (1982-83; 1984-86); Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu
(1990-92); Lahore, Pakistan (1996-98); Lucknow, India (1998-99).

Book manuscript:
The Black Cow's Footprint: Space, time and music in the life of the Kotas
of South India

South Asia-related Courses taught at Harvard:
Music 190r (Undergrad and Grad): Music and Islamic Contexts: South and
West Asia
Music 190r: Vernacular Music of South Asia (Undergrad and Grad)
Music 190rr: Music and Mediation in South Asia (Undergrad and Grad)
Music 207r: Ethnomusicology of Space and Time (Grad Seminar)
Music 207rr: Music and Mourning (Grad Seminar)
Music 207r: Music and Ritual (Grad seminar)
Music 190r: Classical Music of South India (Undergrad and Grad)
Music 178r: Music Systems, Contexts, Performance (Undergrad)

Articles:

2003 "Return to tears: Musical mourning, emotion, and religious reform in
two South Asian minority communities." In, The Living and the Dead:
Social dimensions of death in South Asian religions, ed. Elizabeth
Wilson. SUNY Press.

2002 "Tribal Music (Nilgiris)," South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia,
eds. Claus, Mills, Diamond. Routledge.

2002 "Tribal Communities (Southern India)," South Asian Folklore: An
Encyclopedia, eds. Claus, Mills, Diamond. Routledge.

2001 "Emotional dimensions of ritual music among the Kotas, a south
Indian tribe." Ethnomusicology 45(3): 379-422.

2000 "Embodiment and ambivalence: Emotion in South Asian Muharram drumming."
Yearbook for Traditional Music 32: 81-116.

2000/2001 "Three perspectives on music and the idea of tribe in India."
Asian Music 32(1): 5-34. Special issue, "Tribal Music of India," ed.,
Roderic Knight.

2000/2001 "Mourning songs and human pasts among the Kotas of south India."
Asian Music 32(1): 141-183. Special issue, "Tribal Music of India,"
ed., Roderic Knight.

2000 "Music in Seasonal and Life-Cycle Rituals." In The Garland
Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol 5, South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent,
ed. Alison Arnold, 272-87. New York: Garland Pub., Inc.

2000 "Tamil Nadu." In The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol
5, South Asia:The Indian Subcontinent, ed. Alison Arnold, 903-21.
New York: Garland Pub., Inc.

1997 "Rain, God and Unity among the Kotas." In Blue mountains
revisited, ed. Paul Hockings, 231-292. Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press.

1992 "The Kotas." In The Encyclopedia of World Cultures, vol. III
South Asia, 134-38. Gen. ed. David Levinson. Boston: G. K. Hall.

1991 "Style and tradition in Karaikkudi vipna playing." Asian Theatre
Journal 8(2): 118-41.

"David Mandelbaum." In The International Encyclopedia of
Anthropologists. Compiled by LARG, gen. editor Christopher Winters. New
York: Garland.

ethnomusicology ; Karnatak ; Carnatic ; veena ; folk music ; Sufism ; ...