Histories Of The Ephemeral

Katherine Schofield•www.kcl.ac.uk

Historian of music and listening in Mughal India. Through stories about powerful courtesans, legendary maestros and captivated patrons I write of sovereignty and selfhood, friendship and desire, sympathy and loss, and power, worldly and strange as the Mughal empire gave way to British rule. My latest co-edited book is Monsoon Feelings: A History of Emotions in the Rain.

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Episodes

Victoria's Sonic Empire: Musical Curios Between London and India

The illustrated version of this podcast may be found here: https://youtu.be/GelmvIU9xfs Victoria's Sonic Empire: Musical Curios between London and India in the Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum A brief history of the Indian musical instruments that were sent for display in colonial-era world exhibitions and museums outside India during the reign of Queen Victoria. Recording of Sitar-been https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAJ3lXw6rdw V&A Images to accompany the podcast http://colle...

Dec 13, 2020•9 min

The Orpheus of Delhi: The Maestro Khushhal Khan and the Mughal War of Succession, 1657-8

The images that accompany this podcast may be found here: https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2018/03/canonical-hindustani-music-treatises-of-aurangzeb-alamgirs-reign.html . What was the connection between the power of Indian music and the Mughal emperor’s sovereign power? And why is there a picture of Orpheus above the Mughal throne in Delhi? Perhaps the most famous anecdote of the reign of emperor Aurangzeb (r.1658–1707) concerns his “burial of music”, a parodic funeral procession put on by ...

Jan 28, 2019•42 min

A Bloody Difficult Woman: Mayalee Dancing Girl vs. the East India Company

The images that accompany this podcast may be found here: https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2019/03/musicians-and-dancers-in-the-india-office-records.html In 1818, the East India Company signed a treaty with the autonomous Rajput states of Jaipur and Jodhpur, offering British political and military protection in exchange for heavy cash tribute. By the early 1830s, these states were swimming in debt and increasingly resisting the Company's influence. So in 1835 the Company took direct control...

Nov 25, 2018•43 min

The Courtesan and the Memsahib: Khanum Jan Meets Sophia Plowden at the 18C Court of Lucknow

The images that accompany this podcast may be found here: http://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2018/06/sophia-plowden-khanum-jan-and-hindustani-airs.html Khanum Jan was a celebrity courtesan in the cantonment of Kanpur and the court of Asafuddaula of Lucknow in 1780s North India. Famed then for her virtuosic singing, dancing, and speaking eyes, Khanum became famous again in the twentieth century because of her close musical interactions with a remarkable Englishwoman, Sophia Plowden. Through Plo...

Jun 01, 2018•39 min

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