SAAI Book Talks is a new series that invites scholars in the field of South Asian art history and architecture to engage in discussion around their recent publications. The inaugural event of the series brings together Chanchal Dadlani, Associate Professor of Art at Wake Forest University and author of From Stone to Paper: Architecture as History in the Late Mughal Empire (Yale University Press, 2018) and Niharika Dinkar, Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at Boise State University and author of Empires of Light: Vision, Visibility, and Power in Colonial India (Manchester University Press, 2019).

Dadlani and Dinkar will each present on their scholarship and then engage in a discussion with audience members on the thematics of their respective books.

PLEASE NOTE
This is an in-person event. An RSVP and proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test result is required for attendance.

Space is limited. Please RSVP to arianapemberton@berkeley.edu

Speaker Bios
Chanchal Dadlani is Associate Professor of Art at Wake Forest University, where she is also Associate Chair and ZSR Foundation Faculty Fellow. Her first book, From Stone to Paper: Architecture as History in the Late Mughal Empire (Yale University Press, 2018) considers how the late 18th century—a period of political loss for the Mughal Empire on the eve of the transition to British rule—was simultaneously a period of architectural dynamism for the Mughals, allowing them to retain cultural authority. Dadlani’s book received a Mellon Author Award from the Society of Architectural Historians and was shortlisted for both the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award (College Art Association) and the Kenshur Prize (Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies). Dadlani’s research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Getty Research Institute, Fulbright-Hays, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Niharika Dinkar is Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at Boise State University, where her research interests revolve around South Asian visual culture and modernity, postcolonial visual politics, and gender and performance studies. Empires of Light: Vision, Visibility, and Power in Colonial India (Manchester University Press, 2019), Dinkar’s first book, theorizes light as a central component of imperial consolidation in an industrialized 19th century colonial India, from its dynamic material presence in homes, streets, and public space, to its instrumentalization through industries of representation—seen, for example, in the paintings of Ravi Varma (1848-1906). Dinkar ultimately frames light as not just an ideological effect of empire, but a material presence that produced spaces and inscribed bodies. Dinkar has been the recipient of fellowships from the Getty Foundation, the India Foundation for the Arts, and the Institute for Cultural Inquiry,
Berlin.