Gianna Carotenuto, PhD

Instructor

About

Education

Ph.D. Art History, University of California, Los Angeles

 

Gianna Carotenuto is trained as an Art Historian specializing in the art, culture, architecture and multi-religious histories of South India and South East Asia. Her concentration in Post-Colonial Theory and Feminism informs her research in the areas of identity and gender politics, representations of otherness, exoticism, Orientalism, and indigenous resistance. In particular, she explores the advent of photography as a catalyst for the break down in colonial regimes, the impact of photography on representation, and indigenous use of photography to re-narrate their history.  Current research looks at contemporary appropriation of indigenous culture. Gianna is active in the contemporary art world as curator, legal expert, appraiser, advisor to collectors and artist in residency programs. She is the author of numerous articles including “Domesticating the Harem: The ‘New Woman’ in Colonial Indian Photography, 1895-1915,” The New Woman International: Representations in Photography and Film, 1870 to 1960’s (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press); and “Masculinity and Domesticity: Orientalizing Gender in the Nizam of Hyderabad’s Zenana” in Gender and the Colonial Archive, (New Delhi: Marg Publications). Her courses address the intersections of East & West, primarily through the photographic lens and cover topics such as Geography and Mapping of Empire, Islam in India, Sacred Landscape, Colonial Feminism, Art for Social Justice, Global Histories of Photography, Indigenous Art of No/So America and Their Histories of Resistance.