@article{RadioKurdistan:IraqiKurdishMusic:3939,
      recid = {3939},
      author = {Bullock, Jon Edward},
      title = {Radio Kurdistan: Iraqi Kurdish Music, Colonial Power, and  the Transmission of Tradition},
      publisher = {University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2022-06},
      pages = {224},
      abstract = {For centuries, Kurds have lived at the edges of empire.  This liminal status has often resulted in the suppression  or outright decimation of Kurdish language, culture, and  bodies. When Western colonial intervention in the early  twentieth century led to the creation of the modern Middle  East, Kurds found themselves once again divided by  political boundaries created to serve the needs of colonial  powers. This dissertation examines the ways in which this  division has impacted musical practice among Iraqi Kurds.  Rather than arguing (as do some postcolonial scholars) that  colonial ruptures have rendered musical tradition  impossible, I contend that the realm of musical practice  represents a key site for the contestation and critique not  only of colonial power, but also of the temporal and  spatial logics underpinning that power and ensuring its  continuing legacy into the present. Central to this  response have been technologies of sound, a category within  which I include more obvious examples such as recording and  broadcasting technologies, but also the human voice. Even  while acknowledging the ways in which colonial power made  certain of these technologies possible in the first place,  I argue that Iraqi Kurdish musicians have used these  technologies to define themselves in ways that defy the  designations of their colonizers. In Chapter 1, I examine  historical representations of Kurdish musical practice in a  wide range of documents including nineteenth-century  travelogues and twentieth-century liner notes, drawing out  the ways in which many of these works reflect certain  colonial logics of place and time. In Chapter 2, I examine  the impact of colonial power on various sound technologies,  interrogating the ways in which these same technologies  ultimately became sites of resistance. In Chapter 3, I  offer a historical overview of Kurdish radio broadcasts,  which have contributed to the formation of a transnational  Kurdish listening public and have shaped contemporary  Kurdish musical practice in profound ways. Finally, in  Chapter 4, I build on ethnographic research to examine the  ways in which contemporary Iraqi Kurdish musicians and  music educators are now involved in relating broader  histories of Kurdish musical tradition and are invested in  transmitting this tradition to future generations.  
},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/3939},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.3939},
}