CULTURE | NEUROAESTHETICS | DIPLOMACY
As part of the Ph.D Program at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Dr. Navaratna teaches several inter-discplinary courses in culture and heritage research, diplomacy through the lens of soft power and neuroaesthetics. You can find below, brief descriptions of these courses, new and old, upcoming and long-held in our memories!
Welcome to Music Brain and Creativity Lab Research Centre
FALL SEMESTER 2024: Introduction to Neuroasthetics of Indian Music, Dance and Art
Why and how do humans enjoy the arts? How is beauty, meaning and purpose encoded in performance routines, syntax and symbolism in the arts? The course is designed to review and offer a cross-cultural synthesis of our current understanding of the perceptual, cognitive, and affective processes involved in an aesthetic experience. The course assumes no prior understanding of either aesthetics, cognition or the arts- open to students from all disciplines.
This course is open for cross-college or cross-institutional enrollment.
Welcome to Music Brain and Creativity Lab Research Centre
FALL 2023: RESEARCH CANONS IN INTANGIBLE & TANGIBLE HERITAGE- WITH DR. M.B.RAJANI, NIAS
This course will provide an introduction to interdisciplinary approaches to studying culture, heritage and performance studies at large. The course takes a broad view of cultural heritage research: including the tangible, intangible, intellectual, performative and digital heritage-related processes within its ambit. Using published case studies and interdisciplinary canons, the student will be introduced to research methods in: Indian performing arts, Hermeneutics and Cognitive Hermeneutics, research in Indian aesthetics and Neuroaesthetics, Manuscriptology and Palaeography, Digital humanities - under intangible heritage and archaeomaterials, traditional architecture and landscape archaeology - under tangible heritage.
Welcome to Music Brain and Creativity Lab Research Centre
SPRING 2023: CULTURAL DIPLOMACY: INDIA'S SOFT POWER STRATEGIES
India’s soft power strategy could be understood as a growing activism to draw attention to its spectacular cultural legacy as capital and employ it to shape foreign policy. The United Nations adoption of the 21st of June as International Yoga Day is a popular case in point. From a time when international media houses like the BBC and the New York Times shaped global perceptions on India, in recent times, there is a definite shift to own and broadcast and shape consensus from India-centric resources. India’s leadership has increasingly focused on its significant diasporic presence, multicultural values and cultural offerings through official campaigns and including these in mandates for foreign visits. In November 2022, the Indian Council of Cultural Relations signed a first-of-its-kind Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the 23 Indian states to strengthen India’s cultural diplomacy abroad and push regional cultures and cultural products such as textiles to a global platform.
The course is designed to serve as an introduction to aspects of cultural diplomacy and rethinking culture as an agency that power creative economies between countries, augments foreign policies and cement the gap between public policy and external affairs.
