Shreetoma Biswas
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DPhil Student
St Antony's College
Working project title:
Luminous Aesthetics, Electrifying Politics: An Ethnography of the Decorative Light Industry of Chandannagar
Research outline:
My doctoral research focusses on the decorative light industry in Chandannagar, a city in the state of West Bengal, India. I am interested in exploring the aesthetic, commercial and religious aspects of Chandannagar's light art, while situating it within the broader political economy of illumination in India. I regard the proposed project as a way of contributing to the exciting but nascent field of the anthropology of luminosity.
Areas of interest
Visual culture, material culture, illumination, arts and aesthetics, graphic ethnography