Event

New Cultural Histories of South India

Aesthetics, Social Change, and the Politics of Culture

A Conference in Honor of Indira Viswanathan Peterson, Professor of Asian Studies, Emerita, Mount Holyoke College

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 9, 2019

9:30am: Light Breakfast

10:00am-11:00am: Welcome

Honoring Indira Peterson’s Life and Contributions to the Field

11:00am-12:30pm: Panel 1: Design and Rhetoric: Aesthetics and the South Indian Temple

Anna Seastrand (University of Minnesota)

Design and Rhetoric in South Indian Painting

Archana Venkatesan (University of California, Davis)

From Inside a Campaka Flower: Ornamentation, Desire, and Distance in the Adhyāyanotsavam at Tirukkurungudi

12:30pm-2:00pm         Lunch

2:00pm-3:30pm: Panel 2: Poems to Śiva: Community, Region, Religion

Elaine Fisher (Stanford University)

Beyond Cosmopolitan and Vernacular: Vīraśaiva Translations and Multilingual Commentary in Social Context

Caleb Simmons (University of Arizona)

Aesthetics and Social Change in Beṭṭada Cāmuṇḍi, a Kannada Folksong

3:30pm-4:00pm: Coffee Break

4:00pm-5:30pm: Panel 3: Tamil (and Telugu) Geographies: Literature and Modern Political Imaginaries

Lisa Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania)

Abhimānam and Dīkṣā: Claiming the Right to Represent

Sascha Ebeling (University of Chicago)

“We are all Units of the Tamil Nation”: On the Cultural Politics of Being Tamil in South India and Ceylon, c. 1800-1920

5:30pm-6:30pm: Reception

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 10, 2019

9:30am: Light Breakfast

10:00am-12:15pm: Panel 4: Performing Pasts: Sonic Histories as Social Histories

Stephen Hughes (SOAS, London)

Sound Unbound: Visualizing Technological Change in South Indian Musical Practice

Amanda Weidman (Bryn Mawr College)

Redefining Tamil Vocal Masculinity: From the Bhagavatars to T.M. Sounderarajan

Davesh Soneji (University of Pennsylvania)

Resounding Islam: Occluded Histories of the Tamil Muslim Kīrttaṉa, Patam, and Muṉājāttu

12:15pm-1:00pm: Concluding Remarks and Wrap-up Session

1:00pm: Lunch