Mr. Christian James is a PhD Candidate in Indiana University’s Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. His dissertation examines the role of musical performance in internationally funded human development initiatives operating within the Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh.
For over a decade, Mr. James has studied cultures and languages of North India with a special interest in folksongs of western Himachal Pradesh and Greater Punjab. He is proficient in four South Asian languages: Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and the Kangri dialect of Western Pahari. He has received multiple awards and fellowships for language and area studies, including two Critical Language Scholarships. With support from the U.S. Department of Education and Indiana University’s Center for the Study of Global Change, Mr. James spent the 2021-2022 academic year enrolled as the sole student in the first ever Kangri language course offered through the American Institute of Indian Studies.
Alongside his dissertation topic, Mr. James’ research interests include language ideology, public folklore, and Indic musicology. In 2021, the Midwestern Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology awarded him the JaFran Jones prize in recognition of his paper, “Nādānusandhān: Sound Studies and its Lexical Genealogy in Hindi-language Music Scholarship.” Mr. James has worked as an Articles Editor for Folklore Forum, the open-access journal of Folklore and Ethnomusicology Publications (also known as Trickster Press). In 2020, he served Traditional Arts Indiana as a contributor and editor for Memory, Art, & Aging, a public-facing resource guide encouraging older adults and elder care workers to engage with folk and traditional arts.
Mr. James has maintained an abiding passion for music throughout his life. In 2014, he completed a Bachelor’s of Music degree in composition from Oberlin Conservatory. His compositions have featured in several international venues, including the Charlotte New Music Festival in North Carolina (2013), Dharamshala International Film Festival in Himachal Pradesh (2014), and the Syndicate for the New Arts in Ohio (2017). He has worked as a choral singer, music educator, and church music director in Ohio and Indiana as well as his home state of Michigan.
Mr. James’ Fulbright-Nehru project investigates the role of participatory song in the feminist social development work of Jagori Rural Charitable Trust, a non-governmental organization operating in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. Through a combination of participant observation, recorded interview, and audiovisual documentation, Mr. James assesses the effects of collective singing on the delivery of the organization’s objectives concerning the social, economic, and political empowerment of women and girls. The final report documents and analyzes the organization’s total song repertoire, the effects of specific songs, and participants’ experiences of those effects through performance.