Climate Change and the Art of Devotion

This is an excellent book that is well worth reading. Sugata Ray is a very good writer, and Climate Change and the Art of Devotion was impressively researched. This book adds to our understanding of both the fascinating religious and artistic world of Braj Vaishnavism as well as the emerging field of eco art history. In many ways, the latter subdiscipline of art history takes embodiment seriously and focuses on issues of material and materiality—matters that concern many scholars of religion today. As one who has maintained a long interest in the religio-aesthetic culture of Braj, the north Indian cultural area predominantly associated with narratives, artistic forms, and worship relating to Krishna, I learned much from this book. It is a productive example of eco art history and an outstanding examination of goeaesthetics in that it highlights “artistic and architectural practices that were shaped through human interactions with geographical, geological, botanical, zoological, mineralogical, astronomical and climatic formations” (22).

Aesthetics · Art · Climate change · Literature · Materiality (auditing) · Narrative · Political science · Reading (process) · Worship · Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies · Ecology · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · History of Science and Medicine · Law