Conference Agenda
The Online Program of events for the SEM 2026 Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early November.
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Click on the session name for a detailed view (with participant names and abstracts).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 29th Aug 2026, 08:47:02pm EDT
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Daily Overview |
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05E: Ensembles and Classrooms: Musical Knowledge in Practice Location: Walnut | |
| Presentation 3 | |
Sonic Pedagogies for Decolonizing Liberal Arts Education. Introducing the Sikh Musical Heritage in College Curricula. Hofstra University, NY Recent scholarship on the decolonization of South Asian Studies (Santos 2014; Mandair 2022; Thomas and Perera 2025) has redefined the field of education through an interdisciplinary lens and an aural turn (Lorea and Hackett 2024; Feld 2024), contributing to the rediscovery of indigenous pedagogies grounded in sonic practices. In line with these approaches, this paper discusses the introduction of interdisciplinary courses into Liberal Arts curricula that engage with Sikh thought through the study of its musical heritage. Enshrined in the Sikh Scripture and oral literature, the Sikh pluriversal vision is based on an ecology of knowledges that, incorporating Bhakti and Sufi voices, is preserved in a body of about 6000 rāga-based songs. On the one hand, listening and singing to these scriptural hymns as oral-aural ‘ways of knowing’ allow students to experience the role of sung poetry and community practices in the transmission of epistemologies not grounded in the Western canon. On the other hand, these interdisciplinary courses on Sikh musical heritage are an avenue for acknowledging the underestimated role of the Sikh tradition in the history of musics, literatures, and religions of the Indian subcontinent. While the Sikh sonic pedagogy inspires new modes of learning through classes co-taught by faculty and students, with an emphasis on community engagement and experiential knowledge, it also opens a space in the college setting to critically discuss the power dynamics of neocolonial narratives and modern frameworks embedded in liberal arts and music education. | |
