Description:

“Auto-Tuning the Gods: Chhath Puja and Regional ‘Noise Pollution’ on Juhu Beach”

Kathryn Hardy is an anthropologist whose work focuses on language and mediation. Her current manuscript project, Becoming Bhojpuri: Producing Cinema and Producing Language in Post-Liberalization India, traces connections between commercial cultural production and language politics in Bhojpuri. Hardy’s research examines how the acceleration of circular labor migration, the emergence of regional cinema-industrial practices, and the reorganization of urban space are mutually constitutive processes that give rise to new social categories of language and class.

Sounds of South Asia is a yearlong series of visiting speakers whose work exists at the intersection of Sound Studies and South Asian Studies. The series brings together scholars and students interested in expanding the global scope of Sound Studies and to listening to South Asian cultures with fresh ears.

Presented by the School of Communication, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, Asian Studies Graduate Cluster, Asian Studies Program, Screen Cultures Program, Department of Radio-TVFilm, Department of Communication Studies.

For more information, please contact Gabby Garcia at gabbygarcia@u.northwestern.edu