Prof. Damodaran will present examples of how music has been used to articulate resistance during the struggle for freedom from colonial subjugation and how later, after independence, the tradition has continued indifferent parts of the country. She will perform popular songs from the 1940s to the present that have voiced resistance to the existing social and political order. With a repertoire in multiple languages, she will explore the aesthetic as well as the political-social dimensions of the music of resistance in our country and also situate it in terms the influences that have been pivotal in the emergence of the music.
Sumangala Damodaran is a Professor of Economics, Development Studies and Popular Music Studies at Ambedkar University, Delhi. After 17 years of teaching Economics at Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi and a year of working with the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (the Arjun Sengupta Committee) of the Government of India, she joined AUD and was involved in the setting up of the School of Development Studies and the School of Culture and Creative Expressions.
She did her MPhil and PhD in economics from JNU. As a development economist, her research and publications fall broadly within the rubric of Industrial and Labour studies and more specifically on Industrial Organisation, Global Value Chains, the Informal Sector, Labour and Migration. Apart from her academic involvements as an economist and social scientist, she is also a singer and composer.
Venue: IIIT Amphitheatre
Date: 13 March 2020
Page last updated on February, 2020