UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Department of Art History will host an upcoming Dickson Memorial Lecture, "Generative Encounters: South Asian Artists in the U.K.,” by Iftikhar Dadi, at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 12, in 112 Borland Building on the University Park campus.
Dadi is professor of the history of art at Cornell University. He teaches and researches modern and contemporary art from a global and transnational perspective, with emphasis on questions of methodology and intellectual history. His writings have focused on modernism and contemporary practice of Asia, the Middle East and their diasporas. Another research interest examines the film, media and popular cultures of South Asia, seeking to understand how emergent publics forge new avenues for civic participation.
Dadi's publications include "Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia" (2010), which has been widely reviewed in academic and art journals and received the 2010 Book Prize from the American Institute of Pakistan Studies. Informed by postcolonial theory and globalization studies, the work traces the emergence of modernism by selected artists from South Asia over the course of the 20th century. More broadly, it offers a way of writing histories of nonwestern modern art by situating modernism as transnational rather than located primarily within a national art history. Other publications include the edited monograph "Anwar Jalal Shemza" (2015), the co-edited catalog "Lines of Control" (2012), and the co-edited reader "Unpacking Europe" (2001). His essays have appeared in numerous journals, edited volumes, and online platforms.
Dadi currently serves on the editorial and advisory boards of Archives of Asian Art and Bio-Scope: South Asian Screen Studies, and was member of the editorial board of Art Journal. He is advisor to the Hong Kong-based research organization Asia Art Archive. He is currently co-director of Cornell's Institute for Comparative Modernities, and has served as chair of Cornell's Department of Art and director of Cornell's South Asia Program.
As an artist, Iftikhar Dadi works collaboratively with Elizabeth Dadi. Their work investigates the salience of popular media in the construction of memory, borders and identity in contemporary globalization, and the potential of creative resilience in urban informalities. Their work is frequently realized in large-scale installations and has been widely exhibited and published internationally.
About the Dickson Memorial Lecture Series
The annual Dickson Memorial Lecture Series in Art History brings leading scholars in art history to Penn State to share their latest research and meet with students. Often the topics of the lectures relate to courses that are currently being taught.
Established in 2011, the series is made possible by an endowment created by the late Mary Neilly of State College. Neilly graduated from Penn State in 1947 with a degree in journalism. Two years later, when she was managing editor for the Penn State Alumni Association, she took an art history course from Harold E. Dickson. She never forgot this course and its extraordinary professor. By creating an endowed lectureship in art history for visiting scholars she established a very worthy memorial to an exceptional teacher and scholar, Dickson.
Dickson was one of the founders of the department. He graduated from Penn State College in 1922, with a degree in architectural engineering. He earned a master's and doctorate in fine arts from Harvard University. While he was pursuing his graduate degrees at Harvard, he was teaching at Penn State, beginning in 1923 with the title of “instructor of watercolor.” The art history program began at Penn State as a one-credit “Art Appreciation” course, which developed into a very popular single course, and eventually a department. Dickson was a highly respected and productive scholar in the field of American art and architecture. He played an instrumental role in finding the funding and selecting Henry Varnum Poor to paint the land-grant frescoes in Old Main.
For more information, visit the Department of Art History online at https://arthistory.psu.edu.