Special Event: Arts at SAI Seminar
Date and Time
Location
"The Cross Dressing God"
Speaker:
Devdutt Patnaik, Author, Mythologist, Artist.
A reception will follow this seminar in the CGIS Knafel Concourse. An exhibit of the same name will be on view February 2 – March 23, 2016 at the CGIS Knafel Concourse.
Co-sponsored by the Arts Connect International, Asia Center, Carr Center, India GSD, LAMBDA at Harvard Law, and the South Asia Institute, Harvard University.
Chair:
Gokul Madhavan, Preceptor in Sanskrit, Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University.
About:
Can you imagine a cross-dressing God? Hindus can, and have, for over a thousand years. Did this express a universal social reality or was this a highly refined metaphor for a few remains a matter of speculation and fierce debate. But no one can deny that in Hindu holy books and temple imagery when God descends on earth to be the ‘complete man’, it involves incorporating the feminine. Such queer ideas extend themselves to Buddhist and Jain stories too, making it not just a Hindu idea but generally an Indic idea. Through shifts in gender, the fluid nature of the world was shared by the sages to help people expand (brah) their mind (mana). Come experience the stories and ideas they shared through art through Devdutt Pattanaik’s brilliant and unique sketches!