{"id":895,"date":"2026-01-09T10:05:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/?p=895"},"modified":"2026-01-09T10:05:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:05:48","slug":"new-audio-series-excavates-history-of-sound-in-south-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/?p=895","title":{"rendered":"New audio series excavates history of sound in South Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new audio series about South Asian music and Islamic sound arts is aiming to change the way we think about our artistic heritage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Sounding Board&#8217; features readings of essays by influential scholars, musicologists, poets and critics from the 19th and 20th centuries, exploring themes of identity, inheritance and imagination.<\/p>\n<p>These essays, which cover a wide spectrum of intellectual, political and cultural debates, are part of a near-forgotten canon of both Urdu and English writings.<\/p>\n<p>Written largely in the &#8216;Inshiyah&#8217; style, these works present arguments and narratives as springboards, aiming to develop a critical appreciation of issues and concerns in Indo-Islamic aesthetics, and invite commentary and critique.<\/p>\n<p>The series is narrated and produced by Ali Raj, an award-winning journalist and scholar based in New York. Raj is a PhD candidate in communications at Columbia University, where his research focuses on the intellectual history of sound and aesthetics in the Indo-Islamic tradition.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The goal is to bring to life ideas about music and sound that will help restore connection with our sonic and literary heritage,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Created primarily for podcast streaming platforms, episodes of &#8216;Sounding Board&#8217; can be accessed also on YouTube. So far, one season has been released, while a second season is near completion. The episodes cover topics such as Pakistan&#8217;s first patriotic song from 1946 to the tradition of &#8216;Naat&#8217; and &#8216;Tarannum&#8217; recitation. Each episode features a full reading of the original text, alongside numerous snippets of relevant archival songs and recitations.<\/p>\n<p>The episodes are also accompanied by detailed writeups on the writers and the background of each essay.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Sounding Board&#8217; is supported by Columbia University Society of Fellows and Humanities New York, the New York State affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new audio series about South Asian music and Islamic sound arts is aiming to change the way we think about our artistic heritage. &#8216;Sounding Board&#8217; features readings of essays by influential scholars, musicologists, poets and critics from the 19th and 20th centuries, exploring themes of identity, inheritance and imagination. These essays, which cover a &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":900,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions\/900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}