Visuality in Traditions of South Asia

Catalog description

Explores ways of thinking about the visual dimension of religious practice in South Asia. A central theme is the effect of modern media technologies on darshan, or visual worship. Accordingly, many of the readings foreground contemporary Hinduism, but Islam and other traditions are represented. Questions of the gaze, the body, substance transfer, legibility, affect, idolatry, surveillance, and the like keep us busy across a range of theoretical and methodological approaches. The syllabus includes several films.