Three-Lecture Series with Prof. David Shulman

A Special Three-Lecture Series

A Goddess and a Half: Tantra of the Heart in the Music of Early Modern South India
with Distinguished Visitor: Prof. David Shulman, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Carnatic music underwent a revolution in taste, idea, and performance. Muttuswami Dikshitar, perhaps the most radical of the period's composers, was committed to the Tantric school of Shrividya, focused on his personal goddess, "Most Beautiful in the Cosmos."

The first two lectures explore his vision of the goddess and the art of bringing her into existence in the modern concert hall. The third will introduce an early 19th-century poet-singer, a Tamil Muslim mystic and Tantrika called Mastan Sahib, whose songs combine Sufi traditions with images of God as an alluring young woman, inhabiting the creative spaces between Tamil Hindu and Islamic devotional traditions.

Generously supported by the Saroj and Prem Singhmar Endowment Fund

Free entry for all events, no ticket necessary

Introducing Muttuswami Dikshitar: "Maya, Go Away!"

October 22 at 5 p.m.
Humanities Centre L1
University of Alberta

God, Goddess, Shephard, King: Rajagopalasvami and the Haunting Saveri Raga

October 23 at 5 p.m.
Humanities Centre L1
University of Alberta

Combined with a performance of Dikshitar's compositions by Deepak Paramashivan, virtuoso singer and veena player (IIT Madras/University of Alberta)

A Sufi Tantrika in Madras: Mastan Sahib

October 27 at 5 p.m.
Business 2-09
University of Alberta