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Suryanandini Narain

Suryanandini Narain

Suryanandini Narain
Suryanandini Narain
Assistant Professor
Centre/School/Special Centre
School of Arts & Aesthetics
Room No
008, SAA-I
Email
suryanandini@jnu.ac.in, suryanandini@mail.jnu.ac.in
Personal Webpage
https://jnu.ac.in
Qualifications
Ph.D. in Visual Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, 2014
M. Sc. in Visual Anthropology, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, UK, 2007
M.A. in Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2006
B.A. in Sociology Honours, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Delhi University, 2004 
Areas of Interest/Specialization

Visual Culture Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Photography and Indian Popular Culture  

Experience
Assistant Professor at SAA, JNU since January, 2016
Guest Lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, 2014
Coordinator for Outreach Programme at the Marg Foundation, Mumbai, 2013-15  
Awards & Honours

2006-7: INLAKS scholarship to study M Sc the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, UK

2008: Ford Foundation senior fellowship as researcher for Centre for Indian Visual Culture (CIViC) New Delhi

2008-10: Indian Council for Cultural Research (ICSSR) fellowship to pursue PhD research at Centre for Studies in Social Sciences (CSSSC), Calcutta

2009: Qualified National Eligibility Test (NET) with Junior and Senior Research Fellowships

2017-18: Co-PI for UPE II Project: Global Transactions and Transnationality: Art Historical, Cinematic and Performance Practices

2019: UGC and IGP-DAAD Indo-German Partnership Project, Freie University, Berlin

2020: India Foundation for the Arts (IFA, Bangalore), Arts Research Grant, Collaborator for book project: Framing Portraits, Binding Albums: Family Photographs in India

International Collaboration/Consultancy

2005-6: Researcher for Getty Foundation funded project on ‘Museology and the Colony: the case of India’ with University of California, Los Angeles and School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University

2010: Consultant to the Ministry of Culture, Government of India to formulate Guidelines for the Reformation of Indian Museums

2019: Coordinator for organising Global Initiative in Academic Networks (GIAN) lecture series at Jawaharlal Nehru University byProf. Christopher Pinney (University College London) and Ms. Taina Meller (George Eastman Museum, Rochester, USA)

Best Peer Reviewed Publications
  • ‘Locating Visual Culture in South Asia’ for New Directions in South Asian History: Methods, Themes, Ideas Ed. Pratyay Nath and Kaustubh Mani Sengupta; Cambridge University Press (Forthcoming)
  • ‘Studying the Family Photographically: exploring the visual method’ for Familial Fields: Studies from India Ed. Anuja Agrawal; Oxford India Studies in Contemporary Society Series Ed. Sujata Patel; Oxford University Press (Forthcoming)
  • 'Women on Holiday:  Intergenerational Narratives in Photographic Albums from India’, Diverse Voices in Photographic Albums: These Are Our Stories Eds. Mary Trent and and Kris Belden-Adams; Routledge: 2022
  • ‘Constructing the Conjugal: photographs of marriage in India’, Points of View: Contemporary Photography in India, Ed. Gayatri Sinha; Critical Collective and  Kiran Nadar Museum of Art: 2022
  • Exhibition Review Essay: Image Journeys: the Conquest of the World as Picture curated by Dr. Jyotindra Jain, Serendipity Arts Foundation, Goa, 2021
  • 'In the Family: Photographic Archives from India’ in Photo - Objects on the Materiality of Photograph and Photo Archives in the Humanities and Sciences  Ed: Julia Bärnighausen, Costanza Caraffa, Stefanie Klamm, Franka Schneider, and Petra Wodtke.  Photothek des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut; Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge, Studies 12, 2019
  • Book Review: India and its Visual Cultures: Community, Class and Gender in a Symbolic Landscape Ed: Uwe Skoda and Birgit Lettmann, Sage, 2018 in the Economic and Political Weekly,Vol LIII No 51. Dec 29, 2018
  • ‘Photographing the Feminine’: a study of women as subjects of photography in Indian history since late 19th century’, Framing Women: Gender in the Colonial Archive ed. Niharika Dinkar; Marg Publications, Vol. 62 No. 4, 2011
  • 'The Marigold Trail: a Review of Robert Gardner’s Forest of Bliss’, Visual Anthropology Review Vol. 25.1; 2009
Recent Peer Reviewed Journals/Books
  • ‘Home Reimagined: Photographic Archives of 2020’ in The Family and the Self in the Time of the Pandemic guest edited by Sabeena Gadihoke for PhotoSouthAsia, MurthyNayak Foundation, July, 2021
  • Guest Editor of the issue Photography on the Margins, for PhotoSouthAsia, MurthyNayak Foundation, February, 2021
  • ‘Coro-Equalizer: my phone project’ co authored with Sumiko Nanda, published in Critical Collective, July, 2020
  • Conference Review: How do Women Work? on women photographers across the world; organised by Prof. Anna Fox, at the Tate Modern, UK (Nov 30th - Dec. 2nd, 2019), on Critical Collective, 2019
  • ‘The Family Intact: the experience of posing for a portrait’ Trans Asia Photography Review ed. Deepali Dewan, Volume 9, Issue 1 titled Family Photographs, 2018
  • Essay in No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: The Museum in South Asia; eds. Saloni Mathur and Kavita Singh; Routledge: 2015
  • Review of Family Album (2011, dir. Nishtha Jain), ‘Telling Her Story: Filming Women in Photographs’, Women’s Camera Work: Asia, Trans Asia Photography Review, Spring 2012,
  • Catalogue Essay, ‘Women in the Studios of Bombay’, accompanying exhibition The Artful Pose by the Alkazi Foundation at Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, 2010

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.