﻿ Alternative trajectories of modernism | Welcome to Jawaharlal Nehru University

Alternative trajectories of modernism

- Shukla Sawant

Transformed rapidly by forces of urbanization and globalization, cultural practices in the urban metropolises across the globe underwent significant changes in the 20th century. These practices have rarely been included in the conventional grand narrative of modernism as formulated in the West. The changes wrought by post-modernist diasporas have opened up other viewpoints whereby “Third World’ societies have sought to insert their own narratives into the diasporic. A significant part of the practice has self-consciously attempted to interrogate the formal functions of art and has instead sought to draw out the political criticality associated with these manifestations.

Informed by debates over identity politics, contestations over the public domain and cultural mediations that were shaped by differing social context around the world, these alternative narratives have demonstrated the network-like formations that informed the unfolding of Modernism across the world. This course will examine these developments through specific examples of art practices from around the world.