Document Type
Honors Project
Abstract
In 1996, renowned contemporary Indian artist Nalini Malani embarked on what would become a decades-long project exploring the Greek myth of Medea as an embodiment of postcolonialism. Considering Medea’s historical interpretations as a mistreated wife and a villainous mother, this thesis examines how Malani transforms Medea into a metaphor of resistance to British colonialism and anticolonial nationalism in post-Partition India. Against the backdrop of the 1947 Partition and subsequent political events relating nationhood with the female body, Malani negotiates Medea as an emancipatory figure who shifts essentialized notions of womanhood into more complex narratives of violence, subjectivity, and liberation.
Recommended Citation
Varma, Maya, "Nalini Malani's Medea Project: Gender and Nationhood in Postcolonial India" (2020). Art and Art History Honors Projects. 10.
https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/art_honors/10
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