Richard David Williams is Senior Lecturer in Music and South Asian Studies at SOAS University of London. A cultural historian of music in South Asia, he is particularly interested in understanding how music and sound are explored in literature, and how colonialism reoriented early modern musical ideas and practices. He is currently completing his first monograph, on the circulation of musicians, genres, and musicologists between upper India and Bengal between c.1750-1900. His second book project is a cultural history of Ragamala, the art of imagining musical sound through poetry and painting. His wider work has explored the history of emotions; music in Hindu theology and ritual; the performance repertoires of courtesans; and music in Pakistani media and literature. His research languages are Hindi, Brajbhasha, Bengali, and Urdu.
