Sunanda K Sanyal
Professional Title: Associate Professor of Art History
Areas of Academic Focus and Expertise:
Art History
Area of Work and Concentration at Lesley: Art History and Critical Studies
Representative List of Recent Courses Taught:
Arts of Africa; African-American Artists: From the Harlem Renaissance through the Civil Rights Movement; Art Since 1945; Art History Theory and Methods; The Nude; Representing Representation; Issues in Art History and Visual Culture
Education: PhD, Art History, Emory University (2000); MFA, Art History, Ohio University (1993); MFA, Visual Arts, University of California – San Diego (1990); BA, Liberal Arts, University of Calcutta, India (1985); Diploma in Fine Arts, Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta, India (1982)
Representative List of Recent Publications / Exhibitions:
Publications:
- “Being Modern”: Identity Debates and Makerere’s Art School in the 1960s. Forthcoming. In Monica Visona and Gitti Salami eds. Blackwell Companion to Modern Art in Africa.
- Teaching Art History at an Art School: Making Sense from the Margin. In Arlene Dallalfar et al eds., Transforming Classroom Culture: Inclusive Pedagogical Approaches. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Film:
- A Homecoming Spectacle. Script, narration, production, direction (2008; sequel 2011)
In my years at AIB, I have saved, without any apparent reason, every single invitation card to senior shows left in my mailbox. I’m not sure what I shall do with them, but they’re there, a boxful by now. Perhaps, when some of these students become famous, I shall dig into the collection, find their cards, and sell them as memorabilia!
Originally from India, Sunanda K. Sanyal is an art historian. He is interested in politics of representation and identity; representation and otherness; contemporary artists from former colonies in global discourses; art pedagogy in nineteenth-century Europe and their colonies. Sanyal has chaired panels on contemporary artists of color at various conferences, including the College Art Association, the African Studies Association, and the Arts Council of the African Studies Association. In 2008, he produced and directed a documentary film (58 mins) entitled “A Homecoming Spectacle”, which explores the visual culture of Durga Pujo, an annual religio-cultural festival held in Kolkata, India. Some of Sanyal’s publications in art history and criticism include: “Medi(t)ations of a Decentered Self: the Art of Jayanta Roy” (catalog essay), Nature Morte Gallery, New Delhi, India, 2010; “Modernism and Cultural Politics in East Africa: Cecil Todd’s Drawings of the Uganda Martyrs”, African Arts, spring 2006; “Kabiito Richard’s Paintings: A Local Reinvention in a Global Perspective”, African Arts, summer 2004; “The Local and Beyond: Francis Nnaggenda’s Sculptural Innovations”, NKA, spring/summer, 2003; “Transgressing Borders, Shaping an Art History: Rose Kirumira and Makerere’s Legacy” (In Tobias Doering ed. African Art, Visual Culture and the Museum: Sights/Sites of Creativity and Conflict.