India Minor Concentration Participation in the India Study Group and completion of its on-campus prerequisites, determined in consultation with the program director, will constitute a minor concentration. Through Asian art from Neolithic times to the present, from China, India, Japan, Persia, Korea, Central Asia, Java, Cambodia and Vietnam, this course demonstrates what distinguishes these artistic cultures from each other and from various European artistic traditions. This course also introduces the vocabulary, techniques and patterns of thinking students will need in advanced art history courses.
Priority is given to first-year students and sophomores.
This survey of the Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim arts of India from the second millennium B.C. until the twentieth century A.D. examines architecture, sculpture and painting. Special attention is devoted to elements of Indian culture that lend Indian art its distinctive character. The course takes a multi-disciplinary approach, incorporating performance practice as well as listening and reading assignments in history, anthropology, mythology, folklore, religion and aesthetics. The Hindu Heritage J. Carter Bewildering in its variety, complex in its intricacies, comprehensive in its interpretations of the religious life, the religious heritage of Hindus provides the subject of this course. Special attention is given to the rise of bhakti, the powerful devotional expressions of men and women in India that has come to characterize much of the Hindu heritage of our time.