Course Description
This course aims to put forward methodological inquiries into perceiving, critiquing and appreciating art and craft practices. The course material is organized according to themes; each theme is discussed from multiple perspectives to present different scholarly approaches to studying visual and material culture.
Course Content
The study material and class discussions
Week 1-2: Las Meninas through ages
Michel Foucault, “Las Meninas,” in The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences (New York: Vintage, 1970), 3-16.
Efrat Biberman, “On Narrativity in the Visual Field: A Psychoanalytic View of Velázquez's "Las Meninas",” Narrative 14, no. 3 (2006): 237-53.
Catherine Soussloff, “Michel Foucault and the Point of Painting,” Art History 32, no. 4 (2009): 734-54.
Week 3-4: Chitrasutra and Interpretation
Isabella Nardi, “Introduction,” “The Texts, Their Translations And Interpretation,” “The Traditional Concept Of Indian Painting,” And “The Theory Of Rasa” In The Theory of
Citrasátras in Indian Painting: A critical re-evaluations of their uses and interpretations (London and New York: Routledge, 2006).
Parul Dave Mukherji, “Adhyaya 41,” in The Citrasutra of Visnudharmottara Purana (Delhi: IGNCA and Motilal Banarasidass, 2001), 158-84.
Week 5-6: Aesthetics/Anti-Aesthetics?
Theodor Adorno, “Art, Society, Aesthetics,” “Subject-Object,” and “Toward a Theory of the Artwork,” in Aesthetic Theory (London and New York: Continuum, 1997).
Sarah James, “Subject, object, mimesis: the aesthetic world of the Bechers’ photography,” Art History 32, no. 5 (2009): 874-93.
Week 7-8: Craft and Knowledge Production
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, The Indian Craftsman (London: Probsthain & Co., 1909).
Richard Sennett, “Material Consciousness,” in The Craftsman, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 119-46.
Roma Chatterji, “Repetition, Improvisation, Tradition: Deleuzean Themes in the Folk Art of Bengal,” Cultural Analysis 15, no. 1 (2016): 99-127.