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