Images of India: Text/Photo/Film

This seminar examines the interface of colonial and postcolonial representations of India as imagined and imaged. Visual artists and writers from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are actively engaged in reinterpreting the British colonial impact on South Asia. Their work presents sensibilities of the colonized in counter-narration to images previously established during the regime of the Raj. Highlighting previously unexposed impressions, such works inevitably supplement, usually challenge, and frequently undermine traditional accounts underwritten by imperialist interests. Colonial discourse depicted peoples of the Indian subcontinent both in terms of degradation and in terms of the romance of empire, thereby rationalizing various economic, political, and psychological agendas. The external invention and deployment of the term “Indian” is emblematic of the epoch, with colonial designation presuming to reframe indigenous identity. Postcolonial writers and artists are consequently preoccupied with issues of identity formation. What does it mean to have been conceived of as an Indian? What historical claims are implicit in allegories of the nation? How do such claims inform events taking place today, given the resurgence of Hindu fundamentalism? For this inquiry, sources include works by prominent South Asian writers, photographers, and filmmakers.