This course provides a conceptual framework for several major developments in the arts and humanities extending from the close of the 19th century to the present. It will introduce students to texts, theoretical frameworks, and thinkers, with a focus on reciprocal influences, appropriations, and resulting hybrid forms that characterize much South Asian, European and American aesthetic work. Traversing between the two halves of the 20th century, this course explores various kinds of modernisms and avant-gardes in design, literature, cinema and visual arts, and the consequences of World War II on them. In addition, it examines the multiple ways arts have tackled political engagement and propaganda, and taken part in the progressive loss of centrality of the West in the global arena. This course will locate the “Modern”in South Asian Art (Art, Sculpture, and Architecture) and will also look into the art and craft binary in the contemporary art world.
