- The Department of Liberal Arts, IIT Bhilai organised an invited lecture by Dr Sandeep Banerjee, McGill University, Canada under the aegis of Intersections Lecture series on 7
In the lecture titled “Mountain Gloom, Mountain Glory: Excursions into Himalayan Aesthetics” held in the campus, Dr Banerjee talked about the category of “Himalayan Aesthetics” by examining a set of texts and images on the Himalaya produced between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The lecture highlighted how these objects—photographs, paintings, travel writings and poems—produce the Himalaya as an experiential site.
The lecture engaged with the different textual strategies adopted by the artists in representing the Himalayas and the implications it carried for understanding human-nature relation. Dr Banerjee concluded the talk by emphasizing the similarities and differences in the representations of the Himalayas in the work of European and Indian writers and artists. The lecture generated a lively discussion that addressed issues of consumption, contemporary concerns over human beings’ approach to their environment, and the methods of reading a text.
Intersections lecture series organised by the Department of Liberal Arts is a multidisciplinary platform for open discussion and examination of the liberal arts and their pedagogies, methodologies, and trajectories. The forum aims to re-centre the reflective, thinking spirit in contemporary social and scholarly life and features invited lectures by eminent professors in various domains in humanities and social sciences.
