Conference Agenda

This paper aims to decode the ways in which the classical South Asian string instrument, sarangi is ritualized in Pakistan by sarangi players and traditional, hereditary sarangi-makers, and informs methods in which labour and accessibility is coloured by gendered norms, societal narratives and cultural undertones. Because there is a direct association of the sarangi with the image of prostitution and vulgarity that origin from colonial British roots, as according to Regula Qureshi, “the story that dominates the sarangi happens at the side of the courtesan singer and dancer (the “nautch” girl)”, “the sarangi is inexorably linked to the licentious and immoral social space where a woman offers her art, and by implication, herself.”

Qureshi describes the anti-nautch movement of late 19^th and early 20^th century India (Scobie), and my paper investigates this constructed musical space through the lives of a sarangi-player of the past by the name of Abdul Majid Khan, disciple of Ustads: Alladiya Khan and Bundu Khan, and those of the present through my ethnographic research in the cities of Karachi and Lahore in Pakistan. They showcase that this gendering of sarangi as ‘female’ and ‘woman’ come with many patriarchal and heteronormative connotations that are premeditatedly also attached to the Britishized and demonized ‘nautch girl.’ Further, it investigates the patriarchal-musical norms of the instrument from women other than the courtesans such as tawaifs of North India or female, temple dancers such as devadasis (Soneji) of the South to those domesticated women that acted as supportive roles to the musical men (professional sarangiyas) in their lives, as the ‘accompanying’ female sarangi is towards the vocalist or lead instrument.

In 2019, Chinese Black metal band Zuriaake (Corpse Lake) released their EP, “Shenting” (Resentment in the Ancient Courtyard). One of the songs, “Li Gui” (Evil Ghost), added vocal samples from Tuva singer Sainkho Namtchylak, symbolizing a female ghost that frequently appears in Chinese folk tales. Female ghosts are common characters in Chinese novels and horror movies, usually attracting greedy people with their beautiful appearance and seductive voices, and then killing them through various brutal ways. In film, television, theater, and music, female vocal expressions, such as whispering, sobbing, and laughing, are often associated with deeply repressed emotions and tragic fates. However, both the song’s original Chinese title and the English translation leave the ghost’s gender ambiguous, suggesting the cultural habitus of Chinese horror subjects. While most research on Zuriaake focuses on the band themselves, their “Chineseness,” the choices of instruments and lyrics, and hermit ideological attitude (Zhao, 2023; Norman, 2024), this study explores intersections of gender identity and expressions of Chinese horror in black metal music.

In this study, I examine the representation and resignification of the female voice in subcultural music of Chinese black metal. Through the lens of Julia Kristeva’s “abjection,” I argue that the ghost suggests a rupture of the boundary between life and death, and the ghost’s female identity represented by Sainkho’s voice exacerbates this rupture and constructs a “monstrous feminine” (Creed, 1993). Moreover, the female voice of the ghost is also resonant with the conception of “Spectral femininity” (Munford, 2016). Through digital ethnography, I analyze music, videos, and public online interviews to discuss the symbolic continuation of the female voice in folklore and its representation in musical contexts. Ultimately, I demonstrate how this female voice in masculine-coded black metal music amplifies the subculture’s rebellious connotations and the trauma of females.

Women have been indispensable to the evolution of Chinese pipa culture as performers, composers, and pedagogues, yet their contributions have been persistently reframed through gendered lenses that reduce them to entertainers rather than artists. This paper examines how the legacy of imperial-era courtesan culture—which conflated female musical skill with sexual availability—continues to shape perceptions of women’s pipa artistry, from 3rd-century BCE historical records to 21st-century social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube. Despite shifts in cultural transmission—oral tradition, imperial patronage, mass media, and algorithmic platforms—patriarchal structures regulating women’s participation in pipa traditions remain largely intact. Drawing on feminist musicology and scholarship on Chinese courtesan musicians, this study identifies three enduring patterns: the commodification of femininity, where female pipa artists’ technical mastery is overshadowed by emphasis on physical appearance, youth, and perceived eroticism; the denial of authorship, in which women’s compositions and improvisations are often attributed to male mentors or anonymized as “folk tradition”; and the containment of innovation, wherein women’s stylistic experimentation is dismissed as “inauthentic” compared to male performers’ “scholarly” interpretations. Methodologically, this study employs historical textual analysis of premodern sources (Book of Han, Tang poetry, Ming-Qing courtesan anthologies) alongside digital ethnography, including qualitative coding of 500+ social media comments on performances by contemporary influencers such as @Shi Xian Guo Chao Pipa (1.2M TikTok followers). While acknowledging cases where women challenge these structures, I argue that digital platforms replicate imperial-era power dynamics by privileging virality over artistic depth, perpetuating the courtesan system’s market-driven spectacle.