I work on South Asia with English, Hindi, Marathi, Kannada and Gujrati print and audio-visual materials. I trained in khayal singing in the Hindustani Music tradition.
Research interests: privilege and dispossession, discourses of respectability and self-respect, performance and performativity, print and audio archives, translation, sonic cultures.
Select Publications
Bhirdikar, Urmila. "Govind Sadashiv Tembe and the Education of Taste in Maharashtra". In Music, Modernity and Publlicness in India, edited by Tejaswini Niranjana, 91-119. New Delhi: OUP, 2020.
Bhirdikar, Urmila. “English Rasa’ and the Making of a Love Story on the Marathi Stage: The Case of Sangit Saubhadra, 1882-1920s”. ZAA: A Quarterly of Language, Literature and Culture, 61.1 (2013), 47-58.
Jaaware, Aniket and Urmila Bhirdikar. “Shakespeare in Maharashtra, 1892-1927: A Note on a Trend in Marathi Theatre and Theatre Criticism”. The Shakespearean International Yearbook, Vol 12, Special Section: Shakespeare in India, edited by Tom Bishop and Sukanta Choudhuri, 2012, 43-52.
Das Gupta, Amlan and Urmila Bhirdikar. Translation of and Critical Introduction to My Life by Sangit Samrat Alladiyakhan as told to his grandson Azizuddin Khan, Kolkata, Thema, 2012 (First Edition 2000)
Bhirdikar, Urmila. “’Gani Sakuntal Racito’: Annasaheb Kirloskar’s Sangit Sakuntal as Marathi Opera”. Revisiting Abhijnanasakuntalam: Love, Lineage and Language in Kalidasa’s Nataka, edited by Saswati Sengupta and Deepika Tandon. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2011, 75-89.
Bhirdikar, Urmila. ‘Begum Barve: Parampareche Punaravalokan” (article in Marathi). Begum Barvevishayee, ed. Rekha Inamdar-Sane. Pune: Rajhans Prakashan, 2010, 72-83.
Bhirdikar, Urmila. ‘Satsar’, translation into English of Jotiba Phule’s Satsar in Selected Writings Of Jotiba Phule, Ed: G P Deshpande. New Delhi: Leftword, 2001.
Select Recent Public Platforms
Bhirdikar, Urmila. Interview in Kannada (with subtitles) with Hindustani Musician Pandit Venkatesh Kumar for Yale NUS College, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsCHuXJXI4o
Bhirdikar, Urmila. Curation and text for online exhibition on Hindustani musician Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur. Baithak Foundation, 2021. https://baithak.org/featured/mansur-exhibition-part-1/ 2021
Bhirdikar Urmila. "Rashtravad ani Sangeet" (article in Marathi tr. "Nationalism and Music"). Aisi Akshare, 2020. https://aisiakshare.com/node/7370
