Can Art History Be Made Global?: Meditations from the Periphery (Paperback)
The book responds to the challenge of the global turn in the humanities
from the perspective of art history. A global art history, it argues,
need not follow the logic of economic globalization nor seek to bring
the entire world into its fold. Instead, it draws on a theory of
transculturation to explore key moments of an art history that can no
longer be approached through a facile globalism. How can art historical
analysis theorize relationships of connectivity that have characterized
cultures and regions across distances? How can it meaningfully handle
issues of commensurability or its absence among cultures? By shifting
the focus of enquiry to South Asia, the five meditations that make up
this book seek to translate intellectual insights of experiences beyond
Euro-America into globally intelligible analyses.
from the perspective of art history. A global art history, it argues,
need not follow the logic of economic globalization nor seek to bring
the entire world into its fold. Instead, it draws on a theory of
transculturation to explore key moments of an art history that can no
longer be approached through a facile globalism. How can art historical
analysis theorize relationships of connectivity that have characterized
cultures and regions across distances? How can it meaningfully handle
issues of commensurability or its absence among cultures? By shifting
the focus of enquiry to South Asia, the five meditations that make up
this book seek to translate intellectual insights of experiences beyond
Euro-America into globally intelligible analyses.
Monica Juneja is Professor of Global Art History at the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies. Her areas of research span the fields of European and South Asian studies. They include practices of visual representation, the disciplinary trajectories of art history in South Asia, gender and political iconography in modern France, and the interface between Christianisation, religious identities, and cultural practices in early modern South Asia.