Reading Social Relations through Texts and Visuals -II — DU History Honours Previous Year Question Papers

1. How do textual sources such as biographies and autobiographies construct narratives of power, identity, and resistance. Illustrate with any one of the prescribed texts. 2. Discuss the ways in which visual arts (paintings, architecture, theatre, cinema) function as archives of social history rather than mere aesthetics. 3. Critically analyse Banabhatta's Harshacharita as a historical biography. How do courtly eulogies of this nature address the different aspects of social relations of that particular period? Examine Gulbadan Begum's Ahval-i Humayun Badshah as a woman's perspective on Mughal imperial power and family relations. What kinds of social relations become visible in her narrative. 4. "Amar Jiban by Rassundari Devi is not only an autobiography but also a text of gendered self-fashioning." Discuss this statement with reference to questions of literacy, domesticity, and agency. 5. Analyse the representation of social norms and gender relations in Jainendra Kumar's Sunita. How does the novel engage with notions of love, freedom, and moral responsibility? 6. With reference to Rajput/ Pahari paintings/ Calligraphy in early modern India, discuss how kingship, and courtly culture visually overlap. How do these paintings construct idealised social worlds? 7. Choose any one architectural site from Taj Mahal/ Red Fort/ Jantar Mantar/ Chittor Fort and show how its spatial design, inscriptions, and patronage embody particular social relations. 8. Discuss how either Binodini Dasi's theatrical career or Fearless Nadia's early cinema work challenges prevailing norms of femininity and respectability. In what ways do performance and celebrity reconfigure social hierarchies.