Workshop
Visual cultures in contemporary India: Two workshops
(Click here to download the following Call for Papers text as a pdf)
The Contemporary India Study Centre Aarhus (CISCA), Department of History and Area Studies,
Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark and Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University, New Delhi,
India are jointly hosting a set of two workshops on Visual Cultures in Contemporary India.
The first is would be held at Aarhus University, Denmark, while the second one would be located
at Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University.
Today visual culture is not only omnipresent and surrounding everyone of us, it is also an ever
expanding field of studies, engaged in and adding to the creation of meanings with every
passing day. It encompasses technologies engineering the production of crafts and commodities
through apparatuses and machines programmed to achieve results according to set inputs -
as in photography and film making. At the same time everything can be changed ‘post
production’ or at least altered significantly and propelled even more through the digital revolution.
However, even in traditional visual art and culture like puppetry or theatre the technology
interface has always been of crucial importance.
Visual culture as it stands today has matured into a more sophisticated genre of study and research
that often favours multi-cultural and multi-locational analyses of cultural artifacts embedded in and
also producing semiotic discourses. We consider visual cultures as shared social or communal vestiges
in the public domain or for a more private consumption. At the same time our interest lies in the
histories of various media, but also in the social use or life of visual culture products.
Both workshops are planned as two days- workshops:
- December 08 and 09, 2011 on Visual Cultures in Contemporary India at Aarhus
- University
- January 8 and 9, 2012 on Delhi and urban India in Visual cultures at Sri Venka-
teswara College, Delhi University.
The first workshop is reserved for a broader mapping of this multi-facetted and dynamic field with its
diverse traditions and innovative potential in India and South Asia. Thus, we would like to trace the development of various media - while keeping in mind the interfaces or intervisuality in the ocular space.
Simultaneously we are interested in the motives, strategies and approaches of the producers as well as
consumers and would like to explore visual cultures in relation to themes such as nationalism; gender,
family and kin; urban and rural images, religion or diaspora and transnational flows.
Delhi became the capital of a north Indian empire in 13th century and - with some exceptions - remained
a capital most of the later years. In general, India had many phases of strong urbanity and urban
cultures, right from Harappan civilization to modern New Delhi. And with New Delhi completing its century
in 2011, it may be a fitting tribute to hold the second workshop on how Delhi has been seen in visual
cultures over the centuries. Thus, we would like to commemorate, analyse and document the visual
past of Delhi and, more broadly, urban India and wish to explore and document how Delhi has been
seen and portrayed in various forms of visual cultures.
We would like to invite proposals for either one of them from scholars who have worked on relevant
areas. Though both workshops are organized jointly we very much welcome individual contributions
to one or the other. Please send your paper proposal to CISCA@hum.au.dk.
Deadline for submitting abstracts:
31th of August (Aarhus)
30th of September (Delhi)
This project is funded by the European Union.
Co-operation that counts.
