Sonocultures : Cosmogenesis and Musical Individuation

In this presentation I will authoethnographically discuss my musical life as a Western Jazz musician in Toronto, who in search of non-Western musical ways of knowing moved to Kolkata for 10 years to learn North Indian Raga music in the guru-shishya parampara. I will trace transformational musical events which helped me deconstruct my Western neoliberal and consumerist subjectivity, based on what Deleuze calls a dogmatic image of thought, and share how music can be approached as a problematic field of psycho-cosmological individuation and cosmogenesis. I will explore my experiences of cross-cultural immersion and describe how through becoming-other I was able to cultivate alternative musical models to explore cultural difference. I will share some results of my research which suggest that nomadic, experimental and improvisatory approaches to transcultural music can shed light on ethical, aesthetic and political conditions of cultural convergence which are important in building posthuman worlds.

Speaker: Jonathan Kay, PhD student in the department of East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, USA.

Chair: Professor Ananta Kumar Giri, Madras Institute of Development Studies & Vishwaneedam Centre for Asian Blossoming Convener:

Randhir Kumar Gautam, Executive co-nurturer of Vishwaneedam Centre for Asian Blossoming

Vote and Song of Thanks: Mrs. Minati Pradhan, Vishwaneedam Centre for Asian Blossoming