Domestic devotion: Jain wooden house shrines from Gujarat in American museum collections
In his presentation, Cort starts with the observation that there are ten carved wooden Jain domestic shrines (ghar derāsar) in American museum collections. This raises a question: how and why did these large objects (most of them are five to seven feet tall, and four to six feet wide) move from their original cultural location as essential components to Jain devotional culture in nineteenth-century Gujarat to become desirable art commodities in twentieth-century U.S. Investigation this question involves a study of changing economic, residential and ritual patterns in India, and concurrent changes in aesthetic taste in the U.S.
Date: 17 November 2020, 14:00 (Tuesday, 6th week, Michaelmas 2020)
Venue: Venue to be announced
Speaker: John E Cort (Denison)
Organising department: South Asian Studies
Organiser contact email address: asian@sant.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Modern South Asian Studies Seminar Series
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/modern-south-asian-studies-seminar-tickets-122379001889
Cost: n/a
Audience: Public
Editor: Clare Salter