The Humanities and Social Sciences Programme at IISER Pune has organized a seminar on:

 

Dr Pushkar Sohoni, South Asia Centre, University of Pennsylvania, USA

 

Abstract:

Like many other sites in South Asia, the origins and history of the temple at Anwa (Aurangabad district, Maharashtra) are unrecorded in writing. The temple does not carry inscriptions and there is no historical record to provide a firm date and patronage. We will look at the physical temple closely and examine its structural peculiarities. Considering the materials, their failure along with structural details, and the historic context, it is possible to uncover the social history and to understand the roles of artisans, patrons and designers in the construction of the temple. Empirical observation, contextual knowledge, and a historical analysis lead to some firm conclusions regarding this site.

 

About the Speaker:

Dr. Pushkar Sohoni is currently associated with the South Asia Centre in a faculty capacity as well as serving as the librarian for the South Asian Studies holdings at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. He first trained as an architect at the University of Pune where he received his B.Arch degree, before reading for an M. S. in Historic Preservation at the Graduate School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, from which institution he also received his Ph.D. in the History of Art through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He has taught extensively at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of the Arts, both in Philadelphia, so also at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.  He is the recipient of several distinctions including the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) Junior Research Fellowship – he has also been named a William Penn Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, a Carl Zigrosser Fellow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at the University of British Columbia. Among his many publications are ‘Continuities in the Sacred Landscape: Ellora, Khuldabad and the Temple of Ghrishneshwara’ in Syed Ayub Ali (ed.), Studies in Medieval Deccan History: Dr. M.A. Nayeem felicitation volume (2015) ‘From Defended Settlements to Fortified Strongholds: Responses to Gunpowder in the Early Modern Deccan’ in South Asia Studies (2015); In and around Aurangabad: Daulatabad, Khuldabad, Ahmednagar (London; Mumbai: Deccan Heritage Foundation, 2015); ‘Nature, Dams, Wells and Gardens: The Route of Water in and around Bidar’ in Daud Ali and Emma Flatt (ed.), Garden and Landscape Practices in Pre-Colonial India (New Delhi: Routledge, 2011), pp. 54-73 (with Klaus Rötzer, 2011) and ‘Architecture of the Nizam Shahs’ in Helen Philon (ed.), Silent Splendour: Palaces of the Deccan, 14th-19th Centuries (Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2010), pp. 56-65.  Apart from his scholastic work in this history of art and architecture, Dr. Sohoni remains a licensed architect in India.