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COURSES SPRING 2009

Histart 236

GRADUATE SEMINAR: INDIAN WAYS OF SEEING (4 units) Mondays, 2-5 308B Doe, CCN: 05658 Joanna Williams

It has been asserted that vision plays a particular role in the religions of India and that this leads to some qualities in the arts of the area.  This seminar will address darshan (literally eye contact with a divinity) and other theoretical arenas for visualization, considering their relationship to Western concepts of the gaze, imagination, etc..  We will simultaneously consider whether and how these ideas play out in sculpture and paintings of a wide variety of kinds.

Possible paper topics:
The treatment of the eye in early sculpture, and the addition of enamel eyes to some icons
Tantric Buddhist visualization and imagery
Facial angles in Mughal painting
Implicit male gaze in Rajput painting?
Bengali folk painting, rural and urban
The work of Indian photographers
Hidden images (cf. Japan)

Read:
Diana Eck, Darshan

Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, Ch.6 “Nation and Imagination.”

 

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