CFP: Gendered Sounds of South Asia, Due 7/15/17

Call for Posts: Gendered Sounds of South Asia

Editors:  Praseeda Gopinath, Associate Professor, Binghamton University and Monika Mehta, Associate Professor, Binghamton University

While Sound Studies is an emergent field in South Asian Studies, much of it focuses on the question of voice and playback singing in Bombay film. This forum moves the conversation beyond this focus by exploring the ways in which gender shapes sound (and sound shapes gender) in South Asia. While we welcome analyses that explore Indian soundscapes, we are particularly interested in studies that focus on Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan. Maldives, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

We invite 250 word pitches for short essays (1000-1200 words max) that use gender as a key analytic for examining sound in ‘live’ performances, television shows, political rallies, religious events, social celebrations, bazaars, markets, films, and radio.

  • How does sound operate in these various types of performances, media, as well as cultural contexts and spatial locations? How do sound technologies shape soundscapes and gendered voices?
  • What technologies, networks, and policies enable sound to travel, or alternately, restrict, and/or regulate its movement?
  • What are the processes by which sound is distinguished from noise? How do governmental practices such as noise ordinances determine the quality and reception of sound and soundscapes?
  • What are the industrial, discursive, and affective networks within which gendered sound is produced, circulated, and received? How do multiple sounds inhabit and interact with one another in shared spaces?
  • While considering the gendered implications of sound, how are sounds marked as religious, regional, classed, marginal (non-hegemonic), ethnic, or caste-inflected?


Please send your 250-word pitch to Praseeda Gopinath ( and Monika Mehta ( by July 15, 2017. If chosen, your draft is due at the end of August. The series will be published in a special series in October, so make sure you have time for edits in September. And don’t forget to read our mission statement, submission guidelines (and peruse some posts) before sending us your stuff.


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