When we first began the discernment process I was admittedly a little frustrated. As a seasoned (possibly even a slightly jaded) senior at Guilford, I am at the point in my academic career where I have figured out the exact formula for group projects. The catch is that this silk road endeavor simply doesn’t fit into my meticulously sculpted mold due to its experimental, multi-faceted shape. I think the most difficult thing for our group (once we all fell into our respective places regarding broad topical interests) was the sheer breadth of possibilities for our research. Our lack of prior knowledge on the silk road and its endless intricacies made us feel a little bit helpless, like we were flailing around in a stormy sea of JSTOR links, and reminded me of something that one of my favorite theatre professors, Marc Williams, always says about directing exercises: “Limitations are freeing.”
However, once we met outside of the classroom setting in a library alcove and began bouncing ideas off of each other’s bewildered brains, I became immediately inspired: while limitations can certainly be freeing in the sense that a thesis should be pointed in a specific direction and prompts can spark new stories in creative writing, we were actually able to choose our own limitations, to set our own parameters. This is such a cool opportunity because we are picking subjects that legitimately matter to us. We knew that we were interested in everything from music, shamanism, animals, and the steppe regions. Within just a few meetings we came up with the following goal statement: our goal is to determine how the movement, spread, and dispersion of musical traditions in the Mongolian Steppe are related to regional religious and ritual practices. If we do find that they are related, we plan to examine how growth and change in one area might have affected the evolution of the other. One instrument that may have been particularly impactful is the horsehead fiddle, traditionally played in Mongolia and often made at least in part from the animal it emulates. We aim to investigate how the use of the horsehead fiddle is connected to Mongolian horse culture, riding, and ritual. We also suspect that music, dance, and spiritually significant instruments play important roles in the shamanic traditions of the region. In light of this, we may also cover some shamanic practices that relate to our overarching focus on music in the Steppe. Overall, we hope to determine how musical and religious traditions intersect within Steppe culture, and how the exchange of ideas throughout the Silk Roads may have influenced them or helped them spread to other regions.
I am so lucky to have experienced the initial discomfort that I mentioned previously, because I think that it is expanding my previously narrow views of what roles students and teachers should and shouldn’t take in the classroom. We are claiming our own academic autonomies in ways that I don’t think any of us expected coming into the course, and it’s honestly awesome. Intuitive, self-motivated research is such an important skill, and I know that it will serve me far beyond this course. The technological aspects will also serve me farther on down the line, although I am currently feeling very comfortable with WordPress because I have used systems similar to it before. I am also learning about what it means to legitimately trust my peers with important project tasks: Jilly volunteered to upload the final version of the proposal for our team, and it was actually a relief to release my typical inclinations towards micromanagement. I think that this project is already helping me become a better (and more pleasant) team player.
My individual role is technically reporter, which means that I will be articulating our progress to the class. Serving as the vehicle for our syncretism will be good for me because I often approach my personal research in a fairly haphazard fashion: one thing will interest me, and then while I’m delving into sources on that thing I’ll find something else… and so on and so forth until my research becomes a black hole. It will be really nice to be forced to report in an articulate fashion exactly what we have been working on. In addition to reporting our findings, I also have a specialized area of research within the more broad parameters, due to my particular interest in shamanism. Rituals across the entire span of the Silk Road employed various types of music, and I will be researching the introduction of different musical movements and the impact that those changes had on the performative qualities of Shamanism. I am particularly interested in the implementation of horses and horse imagery in rituals, which our group has included in the proposal through the idea of the horse head fiddle.
This is a very busy semester for me, as I am conducting my senior thesis for my Theatre major this fall. While I am beyond excited about all the things that I am learning in this course (my research on the silk road and shamanism currently serves as a sort of break from the madness of the semester), I have not allotted nearly enough time to this project so far. I have only skimmed one of the books that I checked out from the library last week, and I still need to devote a good chunk of time to doing preliminary research online. I am proud of my team’s excitement and our ability to listen compassionately and intelligently to one another, but I am aware that I could be bringing more to our meetings. I plan on doing more research outside of group meetings so that I can focus more on cohesion and that syncretism that I was so excited about when we are all together.
Overall, I think that The Heart team is off to a smooth start, and that we will continue to thump regularly along for the rest of the project. I look forward to updating you all with our findings as the semester progresses.