South Asian Studies最新文献

{"title":"Opening the Eyes of South Asian Museums: Making Sense of the Visitor Gaze","authors":"Shaila Bhatti","doi":"10.1080/02666030.2021.1909324","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2021.1909324","url":null,"abstract":"Since the introduction of museums in South Asia during the colonial period, there has been one troubling factor – the visitors. Colonial museum administrators/curators continuously failed to comprehend local visitor interpretations/interactions. This incomprehension led to visitors being variously classified as uneducated/illiterate; a stereotype that has stuck till today where the majority of visitors to museums are denigrated for their inappropriate behaviour and consumption of exhibits. This paper unpacks the misunderstood visitor experience through local visual practices, in particular the role of vision as embodied and enchanted rather than that pertaining to the modern gaze in the museum, in order to understand the South Asian museum experience. This re-assessment is grounded in a critical re-examination of South Asian vision, which so far has been singularly conceptualised as darshan, proposing instead the need for other scopic regimes to be investigated such as nazar. By applying this expanded view of the South Asian gaze to visitor interactions at the Lahore Museum, this paper aims to overcome the persisting bias against local visitors and suggest that their affective responses are not incongruous to the idea of the museum but relevant to contemporary museology.","PeriodicalId":52006,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Studies","volume":"35 1","pages":"89 - 102"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78416207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Making Kantha, Making Home. Women at work in colonial Bengal","authors":"Rosemary Crill","doi":"10.1080/02666030.2021.1893021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2021.1893021","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52006,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Studies","volume":"60 2","pages":"1-2"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/02666030.2021.1893021","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72485488","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Krishna’s lineage. The Harivamsha of Vyāsa’s Mahābhārata","authors":"D. Feller","doi":"10.1080/02666030.2021.1935476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2021.1935476","url":null,"abstract":"examples of Indian miniature painting, sculpture and textiles are anonymous this argument does not convince. Their absence from museum collections is more likely to be because they were made as domestic objects by non-professional women, and were thus much less likely to come to the attention of the (mostly male) museum curators of the time. The core of the book takes two historic kanthas, one in the Gurusaday Museum in Kolkata and one in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as case studies around which to build many-stranded narratives of aspects of life in colonial Bengal in the 19 and early 20 century. The two kanthas are well-chosen: both (unusually) have embroidered inscriptions giving the name of the maker and an indication of why they were made – one as a gift to the maker’s father, and the other in praise of Radha and Krishna. The two kanthas are visually very different, although the styles in which their motifs are depicted are not part of the discussion. One of the kanthas bears mostly secular motifs, while the other illustrates stories of Radha and Krishna. The scenes depicted on the two kanthas are starting points from which the author skilfully explores subjects such as female literacy in Bengal, the place of women in the nationalist movement, the status of widows, the evolution of the Bengali babu and his depictions, domestic violence, public transport, the role of attendants and servants, dance and dancers, Hindu travelling gosains, Kalighat paintings and Battala prints, Bengali coinage, satirical depictions of dandies, brahmins and weakwilled men, and iconographies of the lotus, pleasureboat rides and composite animals. The book approaches kantha mainly through ethnographic, literary and archival sources rather than from the viewpoint of art history; as a result, it is sparsely illustrated compared with other books on kantha embroidery. The copious endnotes give details of comparative pieces, but more illustrations of such pieces would have been welcome. Illustrations of Kalighat paintings, popular prints and terracotta temple carvings make their points succinctly. At times the language tends to academic jargon and the sentences to longwindedness. Given the breadth of the discussion of life in colonial Bengal, I was surprised to see no mention of the Baluchar sari, a contemporary of the kantha that also uses human figures (and steam trains) in its iconography, albeit made by professional male weavers in urban settings. While I found the sections on the modern-day kantha over-long, the exploration of the hinterland of the two featured pieces is full of interest. The detailed analysis of the images on the kanthas and the interpretations that the author suggests for them not only make us look more closely at the pieces themselves but also invite us to reflect more broadly on what life was like for a woman in 19 and early 20-century Bengal. Rosemary Crill Former Senior Curator, Victoria and Albert Museum rosemarycrill@gmail.com © 2021, Ros","PeriodicalId":52006,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Studies","volume":"2 1","pages":"74 - 76"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89961507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mayakonda, A Fortified Headquarters Town of the Chitradurga Nayakas","authors":"R. Lewis","doi":"10.1080/02666030.2021.1875742","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2021.1875742","url":null,"abstract":"The Chitradurga Nayakas ruled part of central Karnataka between the 1550s and 1779. When mapped by the British in the early 1800s, the former Chitradurga kingdom comprised eleven parganas or districts, each of which were administered by a headquarters town. Similar territorial divisions existed throughout the Early Modern kingdoms and chiefdoms of South India. Taking Mayakonda as an example, I trace its development and history as the fortified headquarters of a pargana on Chitradurga’s frontier. The results illustrate the contributions that such towns made to the overall success of small kingdoms like Chitradurga, as well as providing insight into some of the common objects of Early Modern wars in South India.","PeriodicalId":52006,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Studies","volume":"161 ","pages":"1 - 12"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/02666030.2021.1875742","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72426112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mapping the Pāśupata Landscape: Narrative, Place, and the Śaiva Imaginary in Early Medieval North India","authors":"B. J. Fleming","doi":"10.1080/02666030.2020.1854496","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2020.1854496","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52006,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"72 - 73"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82364858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Master may Wander into Servanthood: The King and his Architect","authors":"Libbie Mills","doi":"10.1080/02666030.2021.1945251","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2021.1945251","url":null,"abstract":"Sanskrit building literature offers a thorough presentation of the complex planning, building and ritual that goes into a construction. Among the factors considered by these building manuals is the choice of the architect. In greater or lesser depth, they list the qualifications and qualities to be looked for in an architect so that all will go well, and a few of them go on to address what can go wrong. The paper will follow four texts that examine the architect: the Devyāmata, Samāraṅgaṇasūtradhāra, Aparājitapṛcchā, and Mayamata. The focus will be on the watchful relationship between the architect and his royal patron.","PeriodicalId":52006,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":"13 - 25"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87801903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From Reference to Knowledge Repositories: On Mimetic Aspects of Kalamkari Making","authors":"Rajarshi Sengupta","doi":"10.1080/02666030.2021.1969807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2021.1969807","url":null,"abstract":"This essay seeks to explore the significance of mimetic actions in making the knowledge reserve of the early modern kalamkari textile makers of the Coromandel region, southern India. A shared pool of visuals found in these textiles, south Indian murals, Deccani architecture, and artifacts allow us to assess the histories of the artisans who engaged with cross-cultural and intermedial mobilities. Images on these textiles were mediated, often supplied by their patrons. This compelled the artisans to explore the fullest possibilities of their knowledge employing mimetic actions, which are generally misunderstood as ‘copying’ or ‘imitation’. Contemporary woodblock making in Pedana, Andhra Pradesh, present examples to reflect on these actions as the knowledge practice of early modern textile makers. The layered actions of mediating and reproducing images are deeply informed by artisanal decision-making and thus offer insights to potentially retrieve their histories. I propose the reciprocity of mimetic flow in the early modern Deccani visual culture is a result of artisanal decision – a controlled act informed by artisanal resistance enabling transmission of visual knowledge. Further, I will elaborate on the relevance of the idea of ‘copying’ in terms of synthesizing and developing repositories of artisanal knowledge.","PeriodicalId":52006,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"51 - 71"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89848088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Historicising Child Sexual Abuse in Early Modern and Modern India: Patriarchal Norms, Violence and Agency of Child-Wives and Young Women in the Institution of Child Marriage","authors":"Padma Anagol","doi":"10.1080/02666030.2020.1821515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2020.1821515","url":null,"abstract":"Although child-bride harm was uncovered during the Age of Consent controversy (1890s), no attempt has been made to excavate its origins in Indian history. Rectifying this void, I investigate the phenomena of child sexual abuse in early modern and modern regions of Bengal and Maharashtra. I adopt a female-child-centred approach that involves engaging with the perspectives of girls and young women. Some questions raised are: Did a girl have rights? If so, how was her freewill visualised by the state, law and popular culture? What can we glean from women’s discourses through historical time on pre-pubertal sex, conjugality and child-marriage and how are they different from official discourses? In order to cast light on an obscured subject, I widen the archive to include an analysis of devotional poetry, bardic literature, personal narratives, royal chronicles besides, the more conventional media reports, religious and medical texts. The essay reveals how religious punditry combined with the state and popular culture to produce a convoluted concept of female agency that authorised girl-bride sexual abuse in child marriage. The study finds more continuities than breaks in the prevalence of child-wife abuse within the institution of child marriage from early modern to modern times.","PeriodicalId":52006,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Studies","volume":"83 1","pages":"177 - 189"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83482692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Richard Grove (1955-2020) and the Quest for Interdisciplinary Environmentalism","authors":"Rohan D’souza","doi":"10.1080/02666030.2020.1797354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2020.1797354","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52006,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Studies","volume":"37 1","pages":"222 - 224"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87543970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Great Agrarian Conquest: The Colonial Reshaping of a Rural World","authors":"A. Malhotra","doi":"10.1080/02666030.2020.1788281","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2020.1788281","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52006,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Studies","volume":"75 1","pages":"220 - 221"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86306250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}