The Temple in South Asia

This seminar explores questions, approaches, and emerging directions in the study of the premodern South Asian temple and its related cultures. A freshly published monograph with a specific regional and temporal orientation will direct our focus each week. Our in-depth explorations will consider the particularities of the scholar’s project, their analytical framework and methods, their book’s organization and writing choices, and the ways in which they have expanded the boundaries of the discipline. What can we learn from each approach to the temple, both in terms of scholarly approach and writing? Studies span the medieval and early modern periods and cover the Tamil south, the Deccan Plateau, Central India, Bengal, the Indo-Gangetic plain, and Himalayan lands. We will consider new approaches to such art-historical mainstays as style, landscape, and temple sculpture and painting as well as more contemporary trends such as eco art history, sensory studies, and the digital humanities.