Faculty

Kaley Mason is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Ethnomusicology. His doctoral work investigated how a community of Hindu ritual musicians use their hereditary musicality to improve familial socio-economic status in the southwestern Indian state of Kerala. Currently, his research focuses on the distribution of musical agency in regional Indian film industries and the social uses of cinematic songs in Kerala and South Asian diasporas. His areas of interest include political economy approaches to musical production, social mobility, tourism theory, semiotics, affect, subaltern identity politics, and musical anthropologies of South Asia and Aboriginal Canada. He has published articles in the Canadian Journal for Traditional Music and the Annals of Tourism Research, and contributed reviews to The World of Music. In addition to his training in classical piano, he has studied the sitar, Karnatak voice, and the chenda, a cylindrical temple drum played in South India.

Office: Goodspeed 301
Phone: (773)702-8668
E-mail: krmason@uchicago.edu