How Secular Is Art?
On the Politics of Art, History and Religion in South Asia

The book unravels the complex relationship between the modern categories of art, religion and secularism in contemporary South Asia.

Tapati Guha-Thakurta (Edited by), Vazira Zamindar (Edited by)

9781009380478, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 June 2024

444 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.715 kg

'What is exciting about the collection is that the essays therein offer myriad ways to test the limits of the secular and thus model within its pages the (secular) practice of productive disagreement.' Mohit Manohar, American Historical Review

As an invitation to interrogate the secular modality of art, the book unsettles both the categories of 'art' and 'secular' in their theoretical and historical implications It questions the temporal, spatial, and cultural binaries between the 'sacred' and the 'secular' that have shaped art historical scholarship as well as artistic practice. Thinking from the south, all the essays here are anchored in a conception of a region – one fissured by histories of partition, state formations, and religious nationalisms but still offering a collective site from which to speak to the disciplines of art and the knowledge worlds in which they are embedded. The book asks: How do we complicate the religious designations of pre-modern art and architecture and the new forms of their resurgence in contemporary iconographies and monuments? How do we re-conceptualize the public and the political, as fiery contestations and new curatorial practices reconfigure the meaning of art in the proliferating spaces of museums, galleries, biennales and festivals? How do we understand South Asian art's deep entanglements with the politics of the present?

List of Images
1. Introduction Tapati Guha-Thakurta and Vazira Zamindar
Part I. Secularity and Its Art: 2. Indian Secularism and Art in a Time of Crisis Akeel Bilgrami
3. Art and Secularism in Contemporary India: A Question of Method Karin Zitzewitz
4. In Which Contemporary Indian Iconopraxis Devours Some Sacred Cows of Art History Kajri Jain
Part II. Boundaries of Secular Nationalism: 5. Displacements of Secularity: Decapitations and Their Histories Vazira Zamindar
6. Modern Art and East Pakistan: Drawing from the Limits Sanjukta Sunderason
7. Making Place for People? Geeta Kapur, Secular Nationalism, and 'Indian' Art Zehra Jumabhoy
Part III. Art and Its Gods: 8. Shivaji's Portrait and the Practice of Art History Holly Shaffer
9. Can a Festival of a Goddess Be 'Secular'? Tapati Guha-Thakurta
10. A Historian among the Goddesses of Modern India Sumathi Ramaswamy
Part IV. Architectures of Devotion: 11. Re-enchanting Mughal Architecture: A Critique of the Secular Disenchantment of India's Past Santhi Kavuri-Bauer
12. Rebuilding Konarak in the Twentieth Century: Legacies of Colonial Archaeology and Discourses of Inclusivity in Gwalior's Birla Temple Tamara Sears
13. For the Love of God: Conservation as Devotion in Tamil Nadu Kavita Singh
About the Contributors
Index.

Subject Areas: Political activism [JPW], Religion & politics [HRAM2], Religious subjects depicted in art [AGR], Small-scale, secular & domestic scenes in art [AGK], Art treatments & subjects [AG]