Events

CALL FOR PAPERS DEADLINE: 1 MARCH 2026

This workshop is funded by the ERC Synergy Project MANTRAMS – Mantras in Religion, Media and Society in Global Southern Asia (ID 101118934).

This call for papers invites perspectives derived from immersive ethnography, sound studies, sensory anthropology, embodied research practice and historical methods to study efficacious sounds in relation to music, body, place and ritual in global southern Asia.

Sacred sound has been employed for centuries, across human cultures, to perform transformations upon body, self, society and cosmos. Mantras are paramount example of efficacious sound.

Today, mantras are used by over a billion people globally for ritual, meditation and healing. Mantras are employed by diverse secular, religious and spiritual communities (Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, New Age spiritualities, SBNR, etc.).

In the lack of a single definition that works for its various manifestations over history and across geographical regions, “mantra” is a relational category shaped by the ways powerful syllables and sacred sounds are embedded within local sonic ideologies and musical genres.

This workshop aims to explore the understudied intersections between sonic efficacy and sound practices, with particular attention to the role of mantras in processes of sonic soteriology and place-making in Southern Asia. Key themes include:

• Music and music instruments. How do mantric practices share a sonic ideology that is common to genres of sacred sound (e.g., zikr, kirtan, bhajan, nam japa, paritta) ?
• Health and healing. What is the therapeutic and medical efficacy of mantras? Why are mantra practitioners often situated in the fuzzy borderland between religion and traditional medicine?
• Place-making. What is that efficacious sounds do to the place where they are played, repeated, or amplified? How do mantras contribute to inter-religious tensions and controversies surrounding competing soundscapes in diverse societies?

We welcome audio papers and other multimodal and multisensory formats of academic knowledge production that unsettle the hegemony of the written word.[1]

Building upon selected contributions from the participants, we will collectively work towards:

• An edited volume on Sonic efficacy in global South Asia.
• Sonic contributions to the OMnibus (mantrams.eu, accessible from early 2026 onwards), MANTRAMS’ upcoming immersive multimedia archive.
• A series of audiovisual deliverables, e.g., in the format of audio papers, audiovisual essay or audio documentary to be published as part of a multimodal Special Issue.

[1] See Sanne Krogh Groth and Kristine Samson: ‘The Audio Paper: From Situated Practices to Affective Sound Encounters’. https://seismograf.org/node/19197; Holger Schulze, What is an Audio paper? http://www.soundstudieslab.org/what-is-an-audio-paper/#:~:text=The%20audio%20paper%20is%20an,and%20elaborate%20understanding%20of%20language.

SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

Paper proposals should include a title, an abstract (maximum 250 words), and a brief personal biography (about 150 words) for submission by 1 March 2026. Please submit your proposal using the form available on the website. For further inquiries, please contact valerie.yeo@nus.ed.sg.

Authors of selected proposals will be notified by the end of March 2026. Presenters will be required to submit a draft of their papers (4,000-6,000 words) by 15 August 2026. These papers will be distributed to fellow speakers and chairpersons prior to the workshop. This workshop will be held in person. Full or partial airfare funding will be offered to overseas participants, as well as three nights of accommodation in Singapore. 

WORKSHOP CONVENORS

Prof Carola Lorea | University of Tübingen
Dr Mukul Menon | University of Tübingen
Dr Devyani Bhosale | University of Tübingen