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BEGIN:VEVENT
DESCRIPTION:The Moynihan Institute’s South Asia Center presents \;Anaar
Desai-Stephens\, assistant professor at the \;CUNY Graduate Center.In
this talk\, Desai-Stephens explores how Bollywood songs have become a pow
erful medium for dreaming\, striving and self-making in twenty-first-centu
ry India. Once dismissed as escapist fantasy\, Bollywood’s emotionally cha
rged songs now serve as tools for self-transformation in what has been dub
bed “Aspirational India.” Drawing on more than two years of fieldwork in M
umbai\, she traces how upcoming singers\, amateur students\, teachers and
Bollywood producers use Bollywood songs to perform what she calls “dreamwo
rk”: the musical and discursive work of promoting\, imagining and striving
for desired selves and futures. Across playback singing schools\, reality
television shows and the broader music industry\, filmi singing is a site
of both imaginative potential and precarity\, promising social mobility w
hile reinscribing inequalities of caste\, class and gender. Rather than di
smissing my interlocutors’ aspirational dreams\, however\, Desai-Stephens
argues that we must take their musical dreamwork seriously in order to und
erstand the cultural dynamics of emerging neoliberal economies. Through th
e lens of dreamwork\, she theorizes the efficacy of musical practice as a
tool for shaping subjectivity while outlining a political economy of the i
magination in relation to musical practice.Anaar Desai-Stephens\nis assist
ant professor of ethnomusicology at the CUNY Graduate Center\, having\npre
viously served as a faculty member at the Eastman School of Music\,\nUnive
rsity of Rochester. Her research focuses on popular\, media economies\, an
d\naspirational subjectivity in India and her first monograph\, \;Voic
ing Aspiration: Bollywood Songs and Dreamwork in Contemporary India\, will
be published with Wesleyan University\nPress \;(Spring 2026). Her wor
k has appeared in Twentieth Century Music\;\nCulture\, Theory\, Critique\;
and The Routledge Handbook of South\nAsian Cinema\, amongst others. Curre
nt research projects focus on the\nintersection of whiteness\, gender and
sexuality in the Bollywood culture\nindustry\, and how doulas and midwives
listen in New York state. Anaar is\ntrained as a violinist and vocalist a
cross a range of genres.
DTEND:20261103T190000Z
DTSTAMP:20261017T172732Z
DTSTART:20261103T173000Z
LOCATION:
SEQUENCE:0
SUMMARY:Voicing Aspiration: Bollywood Songs and Dreamwork in Contemporary I
ndia
UID:RFCALITEM639278404520878430
X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:The Moynihan Institute’s South Asia Center
presents \;Anaar Desai-Stephens\, assistant professor at
the \;CUNY Graduate Center.
In this talk\, Desa
i-Stephens explores how Bollywood songs have become a powerful medium for
dreaming\, striving and self-making in twenty-first-century India. Once di
smissed as escapist fantasy\, Bollywood’s emotionally charged songs now se
rve as tools for self-transformation in what has been dubbed “Aspirational
India.” Drawing on more than two years of fieldwork in Mumbai\, she trace
s how upcoming singers\, amateur students\, teachers and Bollywood produce
rs use Bollywood songs to perform what she calls “dreamwork”: the musical
and discursive work of promoting\, imagining and striving for desired selv
es and futures.
Across playback singing schools\, reality television s
hows and the broader music industry\, filmi singing is a site of
both imaginative potential and precarity\, promising social mobility while
reinscribing inequalities of caste\, class and gender. Rather than dismis
sing my interlocutors’ aspirational dreams\, however\, Desai-Stephens argu
es that we must take their musical dreamwork seriously in order to underst
and the cultural dynamics of emerging neoliberal economies. Through the le
ns of dreamwork\, she theorizes the efficacy of musical practice as a tool
for shaping subjectivity while outlining a political economy of the imagi
nation in relation to musical practice.
Anaar Des
ai-Stephens\nis assistant professor of ethnomusicology at the CUN
Y Graduate Center\, having\npreviously served as a faculty member at the E
astman School of Music\,\nUniversity of Rochester. Her research focuses on
popular\, media economies\, and\naspirational subjectivity in India and h
er first monograph\, \;Voicing Aspiration: Bollywood Songs and Dre
amwork in Contemporary India\, will be published with Wesleyan Univer
sity\nPress \;(Spring 2026). Her work has appeared in Twentieth Ce
ntury Music\;\nCulture\, Theory\, Critique\; and The Routledge Handbook of South\nAsian Cinema\, amongst others. Cur
rent research projects focus on the\nintersection of whiteness\, gender an
d sexuality in the Bollywood culture\nindustry\, and how doulas and midwiv
es listen in New York state. Anaar is\ntrained as a violinist and vocalist
across a range of genres.
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