Abstract:
The discipline of art history rests on a visual-based
knowledge that takes the visual as its object and method of inquiry.
It investigates how art constitutes a transcendent and continuous
expression of human content. Art history examines the history of
the production, experience and consumption of visual arts. This
research attempts to read the changes that occurred during the past
four decades in the curriculum of the art history study programme
known as Fine Arts until 2019 in the Department of Fine Arts at
the University of Jaffna, in association with the changes in the
local cultural landscape and the curriculums of similar study
programmes at universities abroad. Since the area of study,
theoretical frameworks, approaches, research methods, and
methodologies of the Art History discipline were introduced to
South Asia through colonialism, this paper examines the
challenges, responses, adaptations, and changes that the discipline
has undergone at the University of Jaffna. This social history
reading is based on the archive in the Department of Fine Arts,
newspaper clippings, curriculum, catalogues, and publications of
the University Grant Commission, curriculum evaluation reports,
and interviews.
