Date of Award

1-1-2009

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Organizational Unit

Joint Ph.D. Program in Study of Religion

First Advisor

Jere Surber, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Ginette Ishimatsu

Third Advisor

Jacob Kinnard

Keywords

Cultural theory, Miniature painting, Postcolonial theory, South Asian aesthetics, South Asian religions, Third world feminism

Abstract

Transnational artist Shahzia Sikander challenges the limitations of Edward Said's postcolonial emphasis on secular humanism by deploying the heterogeneous traditions of South Asian miniature painting while strategically drawing on tradition to critique contemporaneity. Through a palimpsest process of composition, Sikander reincorporates the unknown and silenced histories implicit in the tradition of miniature painting to create social imaginaries with motifs that draw on the diverse traditions of South Asian religions and aesthetics to create a subversive politics of remembering wherein alternative images of cosmopolitanism emerge. Through a sustained analysis, this dissertation demonstrates how these alternative traditions interrogate and critique the limitations of postcolonial theory. Particularly important to this critique are some recent approaches of Third World feminists that highlight the limitations of secular humanism implicit in much of postcolonial critique. Sikander's compositions mirror these approaches as her motifs of the feminine become an intervention into the spiritual emptiness and ethical confusions of contemporaneity. In effect, Sikander's work is an intervention, a warning, and a plea for the re-invention of positive alternatives as her images embody and facilitate a critical and daring consciousness that is necessary to both our social and spiritual well-being.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Linda Eilene Sanchez

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

213 p.

Discipline

Philosophy of Religion, Art History, Women's Studies

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