Romita Ray
Biographic Data
| ID | 3892108 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Romita Ray |
| GIVEN NAMES | Romita |
| FAMILY NAME | Ray |
| SIGNATURE | RAY R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Syracuse University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 6 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 6 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Unruly Indigo? Plants, Plantations, and Partitions
Can landscapes be unruly? Taking my cue from this question, my essay looks at indigo plantations in colonial Bengal as dynamic sites of negotiations between plants, land, and human bodies. Specifically, it analyzes how material, spatial, and corporeal engagements with the indigo plant rendered plantations unruly landscapes. Finally, it follows the unruliness of plantations to the colonial city of Calcutta where the violence of plantation life mad…
Quinine's Remains
Uses of Excess in Visual and Material Culture, 1600-2010
At Home with Durga
In this article, I examine the representational strategies used to visualize the pratima (deity) of the Hindu goddess, Durga, as a paradigm of time, memory, and corporeal identity, in Rituparno Ghosh's 2000 Bengali film Utsab. I analyze the body as a dynamic site of memory-formation that shapes new histories in the sprawling colonial palace in which the film's narrative unfolds with an ancestral Durga festival as its focal point. To this end, I l…
Orientalizing the Bayadère/Fabricating Mata Hari
This article analyzes how photographs of the spy/danseuse Margaretha Zelle fabricated her image of a bayadère or Hindu temple dancer named Mata Hari. Specifically, it looks at how they inflected some key paradigms of orientalia within the orbit of her elaborate pretence while destabilizing her identity when anxieties surrounding World War I were at their peak. A pivotal point of the discussion is the Nataraja, the iconic representation of the Hin…
Inscribing Asymmetry
This article focuses on the banyan tree in Johann Zoffany's conversation piece painted in Lucknow around 1786–87. One of the most striking motifs in the composition, it has rarely been analyzed, especially within the context of what Warren Hastings called, 'the extension of knowledge' in colonial India. Specifically, I examine how its conflation with the artist's self-portrait spatialized the primeval within the orbit of collecting for the 'gentl…
At Home with Durga
In this article, I examine the representational strategies used to visualize the pratima (deity) of the Hindu goddess, Durga, as a paradigm of time, memory, and corporeal identity, in Rituparno Ghosh's 2000 Bengali film Utsab. I analyze the body as a dynamic site of memory-formation that shapes new histories in the sprawling colonial palace in which the film's narrative unfolds with an ancestral Durga festival as its focal point. To this end, I l…
Inscribing Asymmetry
This article focuses on the banyan tree in Johann Zoffany's conversation piece painted in Lucknow around 1786–87. One of the most striking motifs in the composition, it has rarely been analyzed, especially within the context of what Warren Hastings called, 'the extension of knowledge' in colonial India. Specifically, I examine how its conflation with the artist's self-portrait spatialized the primeval within the orbit of collecting for the 'gentl…
Orientalizing the Bayadère/Fabricating Mata Hari
This article analyzes how photographs of the spy/danseuse Margaretha Zelle fabricated her image of a bayadère or Hindu temple dancer named Mata Hari. Specifically, it looks at how they inflected some key paradigms of orientalia within the orbit of her elaborate pretence while destabilizing her identity when anxieties surrounding World War I were at their peak. A pivotal point of the discussion is the Nataraja, the iconic representation of the Hin…
At Home with Durga
In this article, I examine the representational strategies used to visualize the pratima (deity) of the Hindu goddess, Durga, as a paradigm of time, memory, and corporeal identity, in Rituparno Ghosh's 2000 Bengali film Utsab. I analyze the body as a dynamic site of memory-formation that shapes new histories in the sprawling colonial palace in which the film's narrative unfolds with an ancestral Durga festival as its focal point. To this end, I l…
Uses of Excess in Visual and Material Culture, 1600-2010
Unruly Indigo? Plants, Plantations, and Partitions
Can landscapes be unruly? Taking my cue from this question, my essay looks at indigo plantations in colonial Bengal as dynamic sites of negotiations between plants, land, and human bodies. Specifically, it analyzes how material, spatial, and corporeal engagements with the indigo plant rendered plantations unruly landscapes. Finally, it follows the unruliness of plantations to the colonial city of Calcutta where the violence of plantation life mad…
Quinine's Remains
Aesthetics (2 works) · Art (2 works) · Colonialism (2 works) · Hinduism (2 works) · Historical Art and Culture Studies (2 works) · History (2 works) · Literature (2 works) · Philosophy (2 works) · Religious studies (2 works) · South Asian Cinema and Culture (2 works)