Singing the Nation: Baul Traditions, Rabindrasangeet, and Rabindranath Tagore’s Oxford Lectures
- Date & time
- –
- Speaker
- Sahana BajpaieSOAS University of London
- Host
- Asian Studies Centre (St Antony's)
- Series
- Janaki Srinivasan
- Location
- St Antony's College - Pavilion Room, 62 Woodstock Road, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX2 6JF, United Kingdom
- Organisation
- Oxford
Topics
About this talk
This lecture explores the relationship between the Baul-Fakir traditions of Bengal and the musical thought of Nobel Laureate and polymath Rabindranath Tagore, examining how vernacular music shaped his understanding of spiritual syncretism, cultural identity, and musical nationalism. Focusing on the Swadeshi movement of 1905, it considers how Tagore strategically drew upon Baul and other Bengali folk idioms in the composition of his Swadeshi songs (1905), transforming familiar musical forms into vehicles for anti-colonial mobilisation and collective participation. The lecture further examines how Tagore developed these encounters into a broader philosophy of universal humanism in his Hibbert Lectures, delivered at Harris Manchester College, Oxford in 1930 and later published as The Religion of Man (1931). Through musical examples and live performances of selected Baul/Fakir songs alongside Tagore's adaptations, the lecture traces the enduring dialogue between folk traditions and Rabindrasangeet, demonstrating how musical borrowing, translation, and reinterpretation became central to Tagore's artistic and political imagination.
Add to Calendar