What is the Modern? Temporality, Aesthetics, and Global Melancholy

This talk from TORCH Global South Visiting Professor Supriya
Chaudhuri will interrogate the temporality of the modern, the
aesthetics of the modern, and as a somewhat cryptic afterthought,
the mood of the modern, here categorized as melancholy. But it will
also ask how this term travels, how it is translated between
cultures, and what it means in specific contexts of use. The terms
‘modern’ and ‘modernity’ are notorious, global itinerants, on the
one hand associated with a narrative of power, and on the other
with a profoundly asymmetrical reading of history, producing its
own internal disjuncture through the tendency of ‘aesthetic
modernity’ to deny or refuse history, and to produce a
characteristic, melancholic, ‘hollowing-out’ of the world of
technological modernization. How are these terms, and the
narratives associated with them, read back in contexts of
translation or re-use? Professor Chaudhuri will look at some
examples from 19th and 20th century India to examine how the term
‘modern’ is translated, understood, and incorporated into aesthetic
and social practice.