SELECTED PUBLICATIONS


Book 

The Sound of Vultures' Wings: The Tibetan Buddhist Chöd Ritual Practice of the Female Buddha Machik Labdrön. Albany NY: SUNY Series in Religious Studies. (forthcoming, 2024).


Journal Articles (peer-reviewed)

"Mandela’s Inaugural 46664 Mega-Concert – A Second Long Walk To Freedom – Sounding Out Narratives of Empowerment, Religion and Public Health at Queen, Bono, and Nelson Mandela’s Campaign Launch Concert to Combat HIV/AIDS," ECHO: A Music-Centered JournalVol. 15, No. 1 (February, 2020)

"Buddhism as Performing Art: Visualizing Music in the Tibetan Sacred Ritual Music Liturgies," Yale Journal of Music & ReligionVol. 1, Iss. 1 (Feb 5, 2015): 61-91.

"Polyvocality and Forgotten Proverbs (and Persons): Ravi Shankar, George Harrison and Shambhu Das.Popular Music History, Vol. 8, No. 1 (April 2013): 68-90.

"The gCod Damaru Drum--A Reprise: Symbolism, Function and Difference in a Tibetan Adept's Interpretive Community. Asian Music, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Winter/Spring 2013): 113-139.


Book Review Essay 

"Chanting the Medicine Buddha Sutra: A Musical Transcription and English Translation of the Medicine Buddha Service of the Liberation Rite of Water and Land at Fo Guang Shan Monastery. "(Book Review Essay). Yale Journal of Music & Religion, Vol.8, No.1 (2022): 52-62.

Chapters

"Buddhism and Popular Music." In C. Partridge & M. Moberg (eds), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Music, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017, 144-159."

"Mapping the Performative Architecture of Chöd Rituals: How External Musical Performance Elements Cohere With Internal Meditation Practices." TIPA 60, Conference Proceedings of the 60th Anniversary of the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (forthcoming 2021 Spring)."


WORKS in PROGRESS 

Chapters

Cupchik, J. W. (2023). "A Voice of Tibetan Musical Culture in Ladakh" In S. Morelli & Z. C. Sherinan, eds., Music and Dance as Everyday Life in South Asia. New York: Oxford University Press .


Journal Articles (accepted, pending revisions)

"George Harrison: South Asian Music, Subjectivity and Bricolage in the Era of Psychedelia."Journal of Popular Music and Society.

“Melodies for Dissolving the Self:  Tibetan Songs of Meditative Experience." Journal of Musicological Research. 


Books 

Buddha's Unbroken Lineage: From Ancient India's Nalanda to Tibet's Sera Monastic University (in progress).

Ethnographic Pathways: Teaching Ethnography through Community-based Research and Service Learning (textbook manual, in progress)

The Power of Megaconcerts: Rock-For-A-Cause, Mass Media, Philanthropy, Social Change and Global Health (in progress).


PhD Dissertation

Jeffrey W. Cupchik, The Tibetan Buddhist gCod Ritual Meditation Practice: A Study of the Music, Liturgy, Transmission and Performance.  PhD Dissertation. (York University, June 2009).


ACCOLADE (from External Examiner)

Professor Ter Ellingson (University of Washington-Seattle), Tibetan ritual music expert, was external examiner on Dr. Cupchik's PhD dissertation committee, and wrote the following praise in his examiner's report:

"This dissertation has some of the most skillfully drawn and solidly supported analyses of Tibetan ritual since Beyer's classic Cult of Tara, a generation ago..."

[referring to Stephan Beyer, Magic and Ritual in Tibet: Cult of Tara. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.]

"The great strength and achievement of the work lies in what it does...to provide an exceptionally rich interweaving of investigative dimensions of emic significance."

"[This dissertation has an] unusually detailed synthesis of interdisciplinary interests and approaches drawn from ethnomusicology, anthropology, Buddhist studies, and Tibetology."

"It is clearly an original contribution to scholarly knowledge in ethnomusicology, anthropology, Buddhist and Tibetan studies - not just in terms of filling gaps in the individual disciplines, but more importantly in mapping out some of the complex interactions in the vitally productive mindspace that forms the field of interaction of Buddhist ideas, actions, and performances in the context of Tibetan ritual."