I attended my first ACSAA meeting in the spring of 2004, the year after I graduated from college, and a year before I made the decision to attend graduate school in 2006. I still remember that meeting in Salem, MA, for its vivid talks, the truly engaged audience, and for the generosity of senior scholars who took time to talk with me about the field of South Asian Art History. That intellectual conviviality, generosity, and mentorship made a deep impression on me then, and continue to be the things I most value about our organization. It is for these reasons that I would like to serve our community as Secretary. I would be honored to help lead our organization, to talk to prospective and new members, and to communicate the substance of meetings and the board’s deliberations to our broad membership.
I am currently Assistant Professor in Art History at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. I earned my PhD from Columbia University in 2013, after which I joined the Society of Fellows at the University of Chicago. My research is focused on the art and architecture of southeastern India; my book manuscript, of Imagination and the Art of the Real: Early Modern Murals in Southeastern India, argues that temple and palace mural paintings in early modern southern India (1550-1800) reflect and instantiate a turn to textuality and embodied mimetic representation as key features of cultural expression. I value collaborative and interdisciplinary research, and have been part of a number of such projects: the ongoing Interwoven: Sonic and Visual Histories of the Indian Ocean World, which is based on a series of workshops we’ve hosted in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka on the digitization of sonic and visual archives; Temples of the Heart: Making a Home for Viṣṇu in Tirukkurungudi, an interdisciplinary study with Crispin Branfoot, Leslie Orr, and Archana Ventkatesan. I have co-hosted a seminar and lectures on looting in South Asia, The Past for Sale: Protecting India’s Cultural Heritage. I would look forward to bringing my experience in collaborative research, digital organization, and communication to working with my colleagues for the advancement of the study of Southern Asian art through ACSAA’s activities and initiatives.