Description
Book SynopsisMonumental Matters analyzes the role of Mughal architecture—magnificent tombs, mosques, forts, and palaces, such as the Taj Mahal—in Indias cultural politics from the colonial era to the present.
Trade Review“Kavuri-Bauer’s study has implications for understanding public space and monuments generally—and the profound changes they may undergo. In this sense, her research has relevance beyond India. She raises broad interpretive issues, given an overall approach that implicitly queries notions of the invention of tradition through an analysis that privileges the accretion of change rather than any deliberate constructing of tradition.” - Jim Masselos,
American Historical Review“
Monumental Matters is a novel and incisive account of the ongoing reconceptualization of India’s Mughal monuments since the colonial era. Santhi Kavuri-Bauer reaches far beyond architectural and art historical scholarship to probe a range of larger political, ideological, and historical processes that have impinged on the modern life of India’s monumental spaces. She examines processes ranging from travel, landscape painting, and archaeological surveys in colonial India to state planning, tourism, and the cultural politics of a more recent era.”—
Tapati Guha-Thakurta, author of
Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India“Santhi Kavuri-Bauer’s
Monumental Matters is an original and innovative study that historians, students of architecture and nationalism, and scholars of place and space will seek out and profit from.”—
Antoinette Burton, author of
Empire in Question: Reading, Writing, and Teaching British Imperialism“Kavuri-Bauer’s study has implications for understanding public space and monuments generally—and the profound changes they may undergo. In this sense, her research has relevance beyond India. She raises broad interpretive issues, given an overall approach that implicitly queries notions of the invention of tradition through an analysis that privileges the accretion of change rather than any deliberate constructing of tradition.” -- Jim Masselos * American Historical Review *
"[A] novel addition in Indian historical discourse due to its interdisciplinary approach and fresh perspective." -- Fouzia Farooq * Islamic Studies *
"
Monumental Matters successfully weaves diverse sources and personal voices into a rich study of the afterlives of India’s Mughal monuments. This important work illustrates why Mughal monuments matter... With its seamless incorporation of diverse methodologies and theories, this provocative, dense book will contribute to disciplines beyond art history, including history, urban planning, religious studies, anthropology, and more." -- Melia Belli * CAA Reviews *
"Rich and insightful ...
Monumental Matters is a welcome addition to the burgeoning literature on the 'afterlife' of objects and buildings and their entanglements with the discursive trajectories of nationalism and globalization." -- Madhuri Desai * Journal of Asian Studies *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. Breathing New Life into Old Stones: The Poets and Artists of the Mughal Monument in the Eighteenth Century 19
2. From Cunningham to Curzon: Producing the Mughal Monument in the Era of High Imperialism 49
3. Between Fantasy and Phantasmagoria: The Mughal Monument and the Structure of Touristic Desire 76
4. Rebuilding Indian Muslim Space from the Ruins of the Mughal "Moral City" 95
5. Tryst with Destiny: Nehru's and Gandhi's Mighal Monuments 127
6. The Ethics of Monumentality in Postindependence India 145
Epilogue 170
Notes 179
Bibliography 197
Index
