Varshini Narayanan

Varshini Narayanan is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago, appointed since 2018. Her research focuses on music’s role in cultural identity formation, particularly in transgressive performances across race, language, and diasporic communities. She holds a BA in Anthropology from Princeton University (2016) and an MA in Music from the University of Chicago (2021).

Her doctoral work, titled 'Sounding the Hyphen: Cross-Cultural Performance in South Asian America', examines how South Asian American musicians use fusion practices to navigate cultural hybridity. A Carnatic music practitioner and bharatanatyam accompanist, she explores improvisation, pedagogy of oral traditions, and critiques of Eurocentric music analysis frameworks. Her research has been featured in Routledge's 2024 volume on music history pedagogy.