Visual Histories of South Asia Forward by Christopher Pinney

Visual histories of South Asia is one of the rst comprehensive contributions to the rapidly developing cross-disciplinary scholarship that connects visual studies with South Asian historiography. The key purpose of the book is to introduce scholars and students of South Asian and Indian history to the rst in-depth evaluation of visual research methods as a valid research framework for new historical studies. The volume identies and evaluates current developments in visual sociology and digital anthropology relevant to the study of contemporary South Asian constructions of personal and national identities. Owing to its wide-ranging theoretical methodology, from concepts of visual perception to media semiotics, Visual Histories of South Asia covers a rich thematic agenda with contributions ranging from ethnographic research to gender studies, ne arts analyses, theoretical and methodological questions, economic structures, international politics and contemporary cultural patterns. In charting the theoretical and historical advances in visual and historical studies dedicated to South Asia, and by addressing issues of private and national memory within regional, national, and contemporary South Asian iconography, from the mid-seventeenth century to the early twenty-rst century. The thirteen contributions selected for this volume are of immediate relevance to visual theorists and historians, sociologists and cultural anthropologists, as well as to students and scholars of South Asian history and culture.