Visual Cultures of South Asia

LCA 428 and ART HISTORY 428 (Cross-listed)

This semester long course concentrates on the visual environments (such as architecture, urban planning, photography, advertisements, art, public rituals, photography) of South Asia.  South Asia is taken in its broadest sense to encompass not just South Asia as a geographical region, but also places which have been influenced by South Asian traditions and/or where populations of South Asian descent have settled.  The course will follow a historical trajectory of examining South Asian visual culture from the ancient to the modern period.  However, history will be used to examine a range of ideas, such as sexuality, the relationship between landscape and architecture, ways of viewing, the use of clothing for communicating to the public, iconoclasm, and the deployment of architectural synthesis to represent the synthesis of Hindu and Muslim traditions.  At the same time, it will look at how ancient monuments are seen in recent times and/or how changes in the areas in which they are sited have altered one’s reading of them.  The importance of colonialism in shaping the spatial landscape of South Asia and its continued influence on our reading of it as a series of binary opposites: Hindu/Muslim, black town/white town, traditional/modern, sacred/secular, and public/private will be a major focus of this course.  Under colonialism we also see the use of architectural elements from Indian traditions to articulate an architecture of authority in colonial India.  In the postcolonial context, we will examine subjects as diverse as the pleasures of cinema, and the use of public imagery by politicians. While former prominent colonial cities become integrated into the global network, ethnic neighborhoods or former villages (and perhaps former slums) in these cities have become some of the new spaces of consumption.  South Asian cities are constantly shifting landscapes where populations are displaced by war, violence, and slum clearance and yet these are vibrant visual arenas where hoardings of films compete with historical monuments, government buildings, tall modern towers, religious symbols, and the propaganda of politicians.