Dr Bisakha Goswami

Dr Bisakha Goswami is Assistant Professor of Musicology at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, where she has taught since 2012, and Founder Secretary of Muktabodha, a centre for Indological studies and research. Her main research interests are the historical musicology of South Asia as reflected in Sanskrit treatises, and Tagore’s approach to music education. She has authored the publications Women in the Field of Music: A Study of Bengal (2014) and Talarnava: A Musicological Text of Bengal (2017). In addition, she has written several articles on musicology and ethnomusicology in India, about Tagore’s views on introducing musicology in Indian universities, and about unexplored Sanskrit treatises on Indian musicology. Bisakha studied Social Cultural Anthropology at the University of Calcutta where she completed her MSc in 2001, after which she studied Musicology at Rabindra Bharati University in 2001-2003. She then pursued a research project on the topic “Women, Music and Culture: A Study of Bengal” with a Haraprasad Shastri Research Fellowship granted by the Asiatic Society (Calcutta) in 2004-2007. In 2015, she received her doctorate from Rabindra Bharati University for editing the 15th century Sanskrit manuscript “Ānandasañjīvana” that includes sections on Indian musicology. She currently researches on South Asian musicology of the medieval and early modern age. Moreover, she is interested in current developments regarding the teaching of musicology at South Asian academic institutions.