CEPT University invites you to a book talk organized by CEPT Library featuring the book, A Queer Reading of Nawabi Architecture and the Colonial Archive: Lucknow Queerscapes published by Routledge in 2024. The authors of the book, Sonal Mithal and Arul Paul, will briefly speak about the book followed by a conversation with Rohan Shivkumar.
About the Book:
A Queer Reading of Nawabi Architecture and the Colonial Archive explores the architectural production of nawabs Asaf-ud-Daula and Wajid Ali Shah and reveals the colonial bias against queer expression. It offers methods of using queer strategies to read archival evidence against the grain and rewrite erased, overlooked, and suppressed histories.
The book provides a unique queer postcolonial architectural history of Lucknow from 1775–1857. It highlights the nawabs’ non-normative expressions, which not only offered a fierce resistance to the colonial enterprise but also were instrumental in furthering Lucknow as a cultural center. It simultaneously extracts parameters from queer studies and redefines them to illustrate ways in which queer architecture can be characterized. It reconstructs the footprint of nawabi architecture erased by the colonial enterprise and places it back on map—an exercise not undertaken meticulously until now. It is intended for scholars and students of queer studies, postcolonial studies, architectural history, and the global south, as well as the citizens of Lucknow.
Research for this book was supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
About the Authors:
Sonal Mithal (she/her) is an architect, artist, and educator. She holds a doctorate from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, MArch from SPA Delhi; and BArch from Lucknow University. She is co-founder of research and conservation studio, People for Heritage Concern which offers consultancy for conservation and urban revitalization projects, and art projects for the public sector. She is serving as chair of the Masters in Conservation and Regeneration program at CEPT University. Her research, teaching, and writing transects architecture, landscape architecture, queer studies, history, and architectural conservation. Her areas of interest are architecture approaches for climate change, feminist-materialism, and intersectionality which is central to shaping the built environment.
Arul Paul (he/they) is an architect and educator, currently serving as an Associate Professor at the Nitte Institute of Architecture in Mangalore. Their research explores the intersections of architecture, urbanism, history, and queer studies. Paul holds a Master of Architecture in History, Theory, Criticism, and Urban Design from CEPT, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Anna University, Chennai. Through the lens of history and theory, he critically examines the evolution of pedagogy in response to emerging challenges and innovations, contributing to academia, research, writing, and practice. Their publications include Lucknow Unrestrained: Palimpsest of Incongruous Possibilities (Sage) and Queering Academia (Avani), and his exhibition Lucknow Unrestrained was showcased at the Srishti School of Art and Design in 2019. Paul co-presented“ Queering Colonial Archives–Queer Architecture of Nawabi Lucknow” at the Society of Architectural Historians conference in 2021. Committed to social justice and equality, they actively champion these values for all, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
Join this book talks at 4:30 pm on Tuesday, October 15, 2024 at the Auditorium (FP-103), CEPT University.
