This Thursday, September 20th, Celebrate South Asia! (CSA!) is hosting a talk by Noor Asif, an Art History graduate student from University of Washington, entitled “Repurposing the Orient: Representation of South Asian Identities in the Diaspora and Motherland(s).” The talk will be from 5-6PM in Viking Theater, with a reception beforehand from 4-5PM in the Norway room. 

The talk will examine how Bollywood, artists from the subcontinent, and artists from the diaspora all create their own notions of a South Asian identity. Some important ideas that the talk will tackle are the notions of orientalism and re-orientialism, collective identity vs subjective identity, how representation is largely connected to commercialism and what “sells,” and what happens to authenticity in the midst of all these processes.