The Department of History, CHRIST (Deemed to be University) had organized a workshop for the students of I HEP on Visual texts as sources for history on 18th August 2016. It was held in Seminar Hall, Block II between 2pm and 4pm. The workshop was conducted by  Professor Aasita Bali, Associate Professor of Media Studies. Dr.  Vagishwari in her opening remarks emphasised the need to engage with visual texts as sources for constructing history as they constitute a major part of non-literary and non traditional sources.

Professor Aastia’s two hour work shop started of with a few video clips of classical visual texts, where she  focused on how cinema can be explored through cinematic language, colour, costumes, music, camera angles and dialogues.The main components  were  watching various movie clips from, for example, Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, Talvar, Charulata, etc. This was followed by an interactive discussion where students were trained to analyse and interpret, not only what they saw but also analyse why certain responses arises in the audience. The session also trained the students to understand  the elements used. Several questions on authenticity were raised,
The session  concluded by Professor Vagishwari’s note on how history can be inferred through movies, and also why whether it is  historical or not.