PhD Oral Exam - Varda Nisar, Art History

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

The dissertation examines three museums in Pakistan as case studies through the lens of spectacular modernity and critical visuality studies to establish a connection between cultural production and military regimes. It emphasizes how museums operate not only as persistent symbols of modernity for a global audience and allies but also as stalwart institutions that perpetuate colonial thinking about former native-turned-citizen subjects. By focusing on the socio-political context in which these museums emerge, the dissertation underscores that they are a product of unique circumstances and crises, thus highlighting their ajaibness (trans. uniqueness). The dissertation makes a case for rethinking the postcolonial dimensions of museums established in newly emergent nation-states, which were required to perform modernity in order to establish their sovereignty.

Close analyses of the displays, dioramas, and exhibit labels in the National Museum of Pakistan, Karachi (1970), Pakistan Monument Museum, Islamabad (2010), and Army Museum Lahore (2017) underscore that the controlled depiction of ethnic minorities, gendered bodies and religious minorities perpetuates a politics of divisiveness in the service of the master narrative. The analysis is carried out alongside a study of speeches and writings by and about military dictators and with colonial literature and educational discourse in Pakistan to establish the continued linkages between colonial and postcolonial frameworks that view minorities and gendered bodies through a stereotypical lens. It is these links and representations that become the justification for the imposition of military regimes and the creation of a hierarchized citizenry.

The dissertation also examines how the weaponization of cultural institutions through visual cultural production is not without a counter-public, which challenges the master narrative of the nation-state by centring its narratives and archives on alternate platforms. As such, the analysis brings attention to how this public refuses to fit into these national imaginaries by employing digital platforms and strategies to produce a countervisuality.