You are here

Book > Academic Books > Cultural Studies
India and Its Visual Cultures
Share

India and Its Visual Cultures
Community, Class and Gender in a Symbolic Landscape

Edited by:
  • Uwe Skoda - Associate Professor, Department of Global Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark
  • Birgit Lettmann - Research Assistant, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
© 2017 | 424 pages | SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd
Download flyer Recommend to Library

India and Its Visual Cultures is a comprehensive mapping and analysis of contemporary cultural artefacts and visual cultures through different approaches—iconographic, social, political, religious and so on. This book covers various media and their histories by studying visual representational systems, production and consumption of media and culture-specific understandings. Crucial questions about the usage of media in research are also addressed in the book.

In the selection of the subjects and objects of enquiry, there is a constant engagement with the popular and the everyday. The objects are studied with respect to their situatedness in urban space and everyday life. The five sections of the book focus on five aspects of visual culture: camera works, folk/artistry, market signs, pictorial politics and monumental landscapes. With attention to ethnographic detail and anthropology, each section brings an added dimension to the study of visible cultural forms.

 
Acknowledgements
Uwe Skoda and Birgit Lettmann
Introduction: Mapping Visual Cultures in India
 
Part I: Camera Works
Malavika Karlekar
The Photograph in Social Science Research—A Few Ethical and Practical Questions
Anusuya Kumar
Unlikely ‘Devis’: Gender and Imagination on and off the Silver Screen
Uwe Skoda and Birgit Lettmann
Visualising Death and the Corpse: Perspectives on Post-mortem Photographs in Central Eastern India
 
Part II: Folk Artistry
Roma Chatterji
9/11 and the Folk Artists of Bengal
Cécile Guillaume-Pey
From Ritual Images to Animated Movies: The Transformative Journey of the Sora Paintings (Central Eastern India)
Asunción López-Varela Azcárate
Anjan Sen’s Visual Poetry and the Bengal Uttar-Adhunik School
 
Part III: Market Signs
Rita Brara
The Visual Culture of Meat-Shop Signs in Delhi
Fritzi-Marie Titzmann
The Imagery of Indian Matchmaking: Representations of Community, Class and Gender in a Transnational Online Matrimonial Market
 
Part IV: Pictorial Politics
Radhika Chopra
A Museum, a Memorial, and a Martyr: Politics of Memory in the Sikh Golden Temple
Ronie Parciack and Ilanit Loewy Shacham
Divine Order, Social Disorder: Debating the Visual Representations of Lalu Prasad Yadav
Jill Reese
Amma Provides for All: Popular Devotional Aesthetics, Material Politics and the Amman in Tamil Nadu
 
Part V: Monumental Landscapes
Sushmita Pati
Building ‘Monuments’ in a World-Class City: Aesthetics and Politics of Contemporary Delhi
Upasona Khound
Mayawati’s Politics of Sthals: Spectacle of the Symbolic Landscape
 
Index
Key features

India and Its Visual Cultures is a comprehensive mapping and analysis of contemporary cultural artefacts and visual cultures through different approaches—iconographic, social, political, religious and so on. This book covers various media and their histories by studying visual representational systems, production and consumption of media and culture-specific understandings. Crucial questions about the usage of media in research are also addressed in the book.

In the selection of the subjects and objects of enquiry, there is a constant engagement with the popular and the everyday. The objects are studied with respect to their situatedness in urban space and everyday life. The five sections of the book focus on five aspects of visual culture: camera works, folk/artistry, market signs, pictorial politics and monumental landscapes. With attention to ethnographic detail and anthropology, each section brings an added dimension to the study of visible cultural forms.

Preview this book

For instructors

This book is not available as a review copy. For more information contact your local sales representative.

Select a Purchasing Option

ISBN: 9789386446688
$59.99