Frontiers of History

Cartoon Trouble: A History of Times We Did not Laugh

Illustrated lecture by Prof. Ritu Gairola Khanduri, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology, University of Texas at Arlington, USA and author of Caricaturing Culture in India: Cartoons and History in the Modern World (Cambridge University Press, 2014)

Chair: Ms Sujata Prasad, Advisor, National Gallery of Modern Art

Globally cartoons continue to spark debates, complaints, petitions, arrests, censorship and violence. This puts the spotlight on a peripheral visual form that has historically flourished as journalism and as art. "Cartoon Trouble: A history of times we did not laugh" approaches cartoons as John Lewis famously said of social justice activism, "good trouble" and "necessary trouble." Cartoon trouble draws attention to the cartoon's generative form and its social life. Beginning with cartoon talk in colonial India, this lecture highlights cartoons that made its intended and unintended audiences squirm and furious. This is an invitation to ponder why cartoons matter and why we must make space for this unsparing art form.

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