Zoe Sherinian

Zoe Sherinian is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Oklahoma with research interests in the intersectionality of caste, class, and gender, as well as world percussion, Christian indigenization, activist/applied ethnomusicology, queer theory, and ethnomusicological film. Her geographic focus is South India where she primarily studies the relationship between caste and music. Her secondary focus is African American music. She has published the book, Tamil Folk Music as Dalit Liberation Theology (Indian University Press 2014), is co-editor of Making Congregational Music Local: Indigenous Songs and Cosmopolitan Styles in the Music of Global Christianity (Routledge 2017), has published articles on the indigenization of Christianity in Ethnomusicology (2007), The World of Music (2005), and Women and Music (2005). Other recent publications include articles for three of the Oxford Handbooks including Applied Ethnomusicology, Christian Music, and Queer Music (Associate Editor). She has the lead article in the book Queering the Field: Sounding Out Ethnomusicology, edited by Barz and Cheng. Sherinian has produced and directed two ethnomusicological documentary films, This is A Music: Reclaiming an Untouchable Drum (2011), on the changing status of Dalit (outcaste) drummers in India, and the multi-award winning Sakthi Vibrations (2019) on the use of Tamil folk arts to develop self-esteem in young Dalit women at the Sakthi Folk Cultural Centre. She is presently writing a monograph entitled Drumming Our Liberation: The Spiritual, Cultural, and Sonic Power of the Parai Drum. Other current projects include co-editing with Sarah Morelli a teaching-reader called Music and Dance as Everyday life in South Asia which will be published by Oxford University Press in 2024. Sherinian’s scholarship has been supported by multiple grants including two Fulbright Fellowships, two American Institute for Indian Studies grants, an Asian Arts Council grant, and multiple internal grants from the University of Oklahoma. Sherinian is an active musician who performs and conducts trainings on the parai frame drum, plays the mrdangam, and jazz drum set. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Wesleyan University and B.A. from Oberlin College. Sherinian presently serves as a Board Member for the Society for Ethnomusicology.