Garrett Field’s scholarship explores the history of song and poetry in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, with particular attention to Sinhala- and Dhivehi-language texts. Dr. Field has also published on how musicians improvise in South Indian classical music. He has received support for his research from the Fulbright-Hays Award, Ohio University’s Baker Fund Award, and two Sinhala Language Instruction Grants from the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies.

Field is the author of Modernizing Composition: Sinhala Song, Poetry, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Sri Lanka (University of California Press, 2017). It was published in the series, " South Asia Across the Disciplines ." He has published research articles in the following peer-reviewed journals: Analytical Approaches to World Music ;  Anthropological Linguistics ;  Ethnomusicology Review ; Ethnomusicology Translations ; The Journal of Asian Studies ;  Modern Asian Studies ; Sagar: A South Asia Research Journal ;  South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies ;  The South Asianist; and The Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities .

In addition to this research, Field also performs South Indian classical music. His teachers were B. Balasubrahmaniyan, David Nelson, and Kalpana Venkat.

Book

• 2017. Modernizing Composition: Sinhala Song, Poetry, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Sri Lanka. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

• 2024. " Rhythmic and Poetic Qualities in Sinhala Speech " by Mahagama Sekera. Translated with an introduction by Garrett Field and Ravinda Mahagamasekera. Ethnomusicology Translations 16: 1-33. PDF
• 2024. “ Musical Improvisation and Elegant Writing: Ālāpana in South Indian Karnatak Music Performed by U. Srinivas. ” Analytical Approaches to World Music 11(2): 1-33. | PDF
• 2022. “ Poetry for Linguistic Description: The Maldives Inside and Outside the Arabic Cosmopolis in 1890. ” Modern Asian Studies 1-32. | PDF
• 2021. " Scrambling Syllables in Sung Poetry of the Maldives. "  Anthropological Linguistics  61(3): 364-388. | PDF
• 2018. " Improvising Rhythmic-Melodic Designs in South Indian Karnatak Music: U. Shrinivas Live in 1995. "  Analytical Approaches to World Music Journal  6(2): 1-23. | PDF
• 2016. “ Modern Contours: Sinhala Poetry in Sri Lanka, 1913–1956. ” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 39(2): 1–18. | PDF
• 2015. “ Veiling the Modular: Literary Language and Subjective Nationalism in Sinhala Radio Song of Sri Lanka, 1957–1964. ” The South Asianist 4(1): 1–24. | PDF
• 2014. “ Music for Inner Domains: Sinhala Song and the Arya and Hela Schools of Cultural Nationalism in Colonial Sri Lanka. ” The Journal of Asian Studies  73(4): 1043–58. | PDF
• 2013. “‘ Handa Eliya’ (The Moonlight): Mahagama Sekera’s Experimental Prose. ” Sagar: A South Asia Research Journal XXI: 16–27. | PDF
• 2012. " Commonalities of Creative Resistance: Regional Nationalism in Rapiyel Tennakoon’s Bat Language and Sunil Santha’s Song for the Mother Tongue. ” The Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities 38(1/2): 1–24. | PDF
• 2010. “ From Threatened by Modernity to Reinvented by Modernity: The History of the History of Indian Classical Music 1980–2006. ” Ethnomusicology Review 15: 1–6. | PDF

Encyclopedic Entries

• 2020. "Singing and Song." The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology. Wiley. |  PDF

Educational Background

Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of Michigan
Master of Music, Wesleyan University
Doctor of Philosophy, Wesleyan University