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| Keywords: poetic voice, textuality, time as becoming, pilgrimage, orality, invisibility, Shi’ism, South Asia/Persian Gulf
My research investigates how poetic recitation and repetition facilitate address across spacial-temporal distances between religious subject and legendary historical figure. Past research has focused on the force of ecstatic poetic expression in communicating to the Saint in the context of qawwali performance at a rural Shi’a shrine in north India. Ongoing and future research investigates poetic ritual mourning as form of invocation of legendary martyr in the context of performed Urdu marsiya poetry commemorating the Battle of Karbala. I am also interested in the circulation of legends via oral poetry, such as the life narratives of local Indian saints, when displaced from their site of reference. Upcoming research will be conducted among Indian immigrants in Dubai who maintain poetic performance traditions with “local” specificity.
J. Brien Key Award for research travel (JHU) – 2009
Summer Research Grant, The Program for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (JHU) – 2008
Mellon Summer Language Study Grant (JHU) – 2008
Fulbright Student Grant to India – 2006
Berkeley Urdu Language Fellowship – 2006
Intersession 2009
AS.070.247 (Syllabus)
The Anthropology of Poetry
Instructor: Brian Tilley
Schedule: WF 1:00-3:30pm; Meets Jan 5-23, 2009
Credits: 1
How do anthropologists interpret the poetry they encounter while carrying out fieldwork? Does poetry in everyday life spring from the heart or from tradition? We will put these questions to three ethnographers of poetry—Steve Caton writing on men's poetry in Yemen, Steven Feld on sung poetry in Papua New Guinea, and Dell Hymes on Native American poetic prophecies—while reading related works. Throughout this course we will ask ourselves where is there poetry in our daily lives, what does it give expression to, and what influence does it bear?
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