Waraich to present annual Art History Lecture
"Muslim Identity, Artistic Practice, and Authenticity in Early 20 th-Century British India" is the title of Skidmore's 2012 Art History Lecture, to be given by Saleema Waraich, assistant professor.
Free and open to the public, the talk is scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 14, in Davis Auditorium of Palamountain Hall.
Prior to joining the Skidmore faculty this past year, Waraich was a post-doctoral fellow at the Aga Khan Program in Islamic Architecture at MIT. She earlier was a lecturer and Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Islamic Art and Architecture in the Department of Art at Smith College. She also served as an assistant curator at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.
At Skidmore she teaches"Survey of Asian Art" (AH 104), "Image and Narrative in Asian Art" (AH 351), and "Islamic Art" (AH 209). Her research interests includeIslam, Early Modern Empires, Colonialism, Nationalism, Postcolonial Theory, and Women's Studies.
Waraich received a Ph.D. in art history and a concentration certificate from women's studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is currently completing her book, Contesting Muslim Spaces: Place, Power, and Representation in South Asia, which traces the histories, changing functions, and varied symbolisms of the administrative-residential capitals of Lahore, Delhi, and Dhaka from the Mughal period to the present. The book seeks to analyze the ways in which power and authority have been conceptualized and challenged in early modern, colonial, and national contexts. Exploring the imagery, symbols, and narratives that surround these complexes, the project merges the study of visual culture with issues pertaining to memory, identity, and politics within and across borders.
