Tapati Guha-Thakurta | |
|---|---|
| Born | 27 September 1957 Calcutta, India |
| Occupation(s) | Cultural historian, academic |
| Known for | Art history, visual studies, cultural history of India |
| Spouse | Hari Vasudevan (d. 2020) |
| Relatives | Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (brother) [1] |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Presidency College, Kolkata University of Oxford |
| Academic work | |
| Notable works | Monuments,Objects,Histories:Art in Colonial and Post–Colonial India Making of a New 'Indian' Art:Artists,Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal |
Tapati Guha-Thakurta (born 27 September 1957) is an Indian historian who has written about the cultural history and art of India. She is a director and professor in history at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences,Calcutta,and was previously a professor at Presidency College,Kolkata. Her extensive research work on Kolkata's Durga Puja led to its inclusion in UNESCOs Intangible Cultural Heritage list.
Guha-Thakurta was born in Calcutta and obtained a bachelor's and a master's degree in history from the Presidency College and Calcutta University. She finished her DPhil. at the University of Oxford. [2] Guha-Thakurta was married to historian Hari Vasudevan,who died in May 2020 after contracting the COVID-19 virus. [3]
In 1995,she was awarded the Charles Wallace Visiting Fellowship at Wolfson College,Cambridge. [4] In 2011,she was a visiting fellow at the Yale Center for British Art. [5] In 2018,she was a visiting professor at Brown University. [6] She has written exhibition monographs and curated many art exhibitions. [7] In 2019,she was assigned by the Indian Ministry of Culture to prepare a dossier proposing the inclusion of Durga Puja in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. [8]