Dr. Preminda Jacob
Associate Dean, College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
Associate Professor
Art History and Museum Studies
Affiliate Associate Professor of Asian Studies
410-455-3716 FA 111 FA 334
premindajacob@umbc.edu
Preminda Jacob is an art historian of modern and contemporary art, specializing in the social and political aspects of public visual culture and on the history and theory of the art museum. Her book, Celluloid Deities: The Visual Culture of Cinema and Politics in South India, was published by Lexington Books, a division of Rowman and Littlefield publishers in 2009. The book has an accompanying website – CelluloidDeities.com – that features over 300 photos and three videos. Her conversation with novelist Manil Suri about this research is available on You Tube; UMBC In The Loop: Preminda Jacob
Dr. Jacob has published several articles, including Between Modernism and Modernization: Locating Modernity in South Asian Art Art Journal (1999). A book chapter titled Tamil Cinema in the Public Sphere: The Evolving Art of Banner Advertisements in Chennai, was published in Tamil Cinema. The Cultural Politics of India’s Other Industry, edited by Selvaraj Velayutham, Routledge, 2008.
Dr. Jacob has received three fellowships to support her research, including a J. Paul Getty Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the History of Art and the Humanities, a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship from the Center for Media, Culture and History at New York University, and a Provost’s Research Fellowship from UMBC.
Dr. Jacob holds a Ph.D. in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles, and was educated in India and the U.S.A.