Arts Division
Continuing Lecturer
Faculty
Porter Faculty Services
Kirtana Thangavelu received her degrees in Art History from Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S University, Baroda, Gujarat, India (1985); Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, West Bengal, India (1988); MA-PhD from the Department of Art History, University of California at Berkeley (1998). She is an Associate Professor in Fine Arts in the S.N School of Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad, India, and a Continuing Lecturer in the Department of History of Art and Visual Culture at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Kirtana teaches courses on Religious Traditions in South Asian art, Modernity, Colonialism and Nationalism in Indian Art, Narrative and Storytelling Traditions in Asian Art, Tangible/ Intangible Heritage Studies, and Art Writing. Her research is on the interface between oral, performance and visual narratives in the picture story-telling traditions from the Telangana region in South India. The work deals with the ways in which these rich, resilient narrative traditions have retained matrices of orality, caste and ritual in the context of a rapidly changing world. She is currently involved with curriculum planning, and developing pedagogical practices that integrate the insights of art history for students enrolled in the practicing art disciplines of MFA programs in Indian universities.
