Prof. Dr. Julia A. B. Hegewald

Julia A. B. Hegwald
© Barbara Frommann

Academic Profile

Julia Hegewald focuses on artistic and architectural expressions of different forms of dependency in Asian, particularly South Asian, art and architecture. She employs the theory of ‘re-use’ to show how different people have reacted in a variety of situations of extreme dependency, frequently in very creative ways, to integrate the old and the new, to bridge divides and eventually to contribute to cultural processes which are able to heal and mediate between at times wide and violent disparities of cultural expression.

4 books, 8 edited volumes, 95 academic articles, 5 book reviews and 17 articles in newspapers and magazines, over 100 international and national lectures and presentations, 8 completed, 10 ongoing doctorate supervisions, 53 Master and 32 Bachelor theses as supervisor/first reviewer.

 

Project Phase 2

SADs Expressed in the Styles of Religious and Government Buildings in South Asia and the Diaspora

SADs in South Asia are not only evident in human and human-divine relationships. They are
also visualized in architectural styles. These are consciously chosen and reflect both religious and national dependencies. I will study colonial architecture in India and the dependencies which the selected hybrid architectural styles express. What happened to these buildings after Independence and why is their style no longer acceptable to the present Indian government, which replaced them in 2023? Another interesting case is made by modern religious constructions in the Buddhist home region. Here we encounter fascinating two-way dependencies. On the one side, prominent Buddhist communities e.g. in Japan and Thailand, depend for their own legitimization on direct links with the original sites in India and Nepal. This need is expressed in building projects, introducing clearly recognizable architectural styles from Japan and Thailand to these sites. Whilst the imported styles are entirely alien to local Buddhists, they are permanent markers of their financial dependency on wealthy foreign Buddhist communities. A final focal group of monuments to be studied are Hindu and Jaina temples, Sikh gurdwaras and Islamic mosques raised in countries across the Western world. In this context, sometimes religious dependencies and at others national reliances are stressed more strongly in the applied styles. New dependencies, e.g. on Western building regulations and authorities enter the debate as well.

By looking beyond slavery and other more direct forms of physical dependency, this project
seeks to shed light on the role played by architectural styles in embodying and visualizing
strong asymmetrical religious, national, financial and political dependencies. The central aim
of this project is an examination of architectural styles employed by colonial powers, South
Asian independent democratic governments and Asian and Islamic religious communities in
different diaspora contexts in Asia and the West. Through the lens of a Dependency Studies
framework, these will emerge as clear visual representations of SADs, and illustrate that such
dependencies are frequently strongly relational, working in two-way relationships and in complex networks of interdependent actors.

2008
Habilitation, University of Aachen (Germany), Venia legendi for South Asian Art History

1998
Ph.D. in History of Indian Architecture, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, UK

1998
M.A. at the University of Oxford, UK

1991–1998
B.A. in Art and Archaeology with Nepali, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK; Sanskrit, University of Cambridge; Hindi, North India Institute of Language Study, Mussoorie, India

since 2010
Professor of Oriental Art History, University of Bonn, Germany

2008–2010
Lecturer and Reader at the University of Manchster, UK

2005–2014
Head of an Emmy Noether-Research Project (DFG) and Research Assistant, South Asia Insitute (SAI), Heidelberg University, Germany

1998–2005
Junior Research Fellow and Special Supernumerary Research Fellow, University of Oxford, UK

2011–2014
Three-year-extension to Emmy Noether-Research Scholarship (DFG)

2010
Prix en études indiennes der Fondation Colette Caillat, Institut de France, Paris

2009
Distinguished Achievement Medal – Researcher of the Year der University of Manchester, UK

2025–2029
International Advisor for the ERC Consolidator Grant "ID-Scapes - Building Identity: Religious Architecture and Sacred Landscapes of Christian Minorities in India and Bangladesh," University of Porto

2024–2029
External collaborator of task force 3 (TF3) "Visible Mantras" in the ERC Synergy grant project: "Mantras in Religion, Media, and Society in Global Southern Asia," Universities of Tübingen and Vienna

2022–2024
Member of the Research Project PORTofCALL: African-Asian-European Encounters: Cultural Heritage and Ports of Call in the Indian Ocean during the Early Modern Period, Universities of Porto and Coimbra, Portugal

since 2002
Founding member of the Cam-Kar Research Institute in Mysore, India

2012–2023
Founding member and board member of the European Association for Asian Art and Archaeology (EAAA)

2008–2010
Collaboration as international member of the cluster of excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context: Shifting Asymmetries in Cultural Flows," University of Heidelberg, Germany

2005–2014
Head of the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group "Jainism in Karnataka: History, Architecture and Religion" (DFG)

2004–2007
Member of the special research area "Dynamics of Ritual" (SFB 619) University of Heidelberg, Germany

since 2020  
Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Global Archaeology (JoGa), Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI)

since 2017  
Member of the editorial board of Veranda, the journal of the Sushant Scholl of Art  & Architecture, Ansal University, Gurgaon, India

since 2014  
Member of the Scientific Committee of the International Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), Rome and New Delhi

since 2014
Editor of the series "Studies in Asian Art and Culture" (SAAC), EB-Verlag Berlin

since 2010
Member of the editor's office of the "Vienna Journal of South Asian Studies" (WZKS)

since 2010
Member of the editorial committee of "Contemporary South Asia"
Member of the editorial board of the "International Journal of Jaina Studies" (IJJS)

  • German Research Foundation (DFG): Emmy Noether Fellowship 2002–2004, Emmy Noether Research Group 2005–2014
  • Individual project fundings (Wingate Foundation 2001–2003, Society for South Asian Studies 1999)
  • Publication grants (Ernst Waldschmidt Foundation 2007, British Academy 2000)
  • 2026. "Jaina and Vīraśaiva Interactions in South India: Archaeological Evidence for                Dependencies and Mutual Exchange." In Multicultural Religious Interactions in Ancient Central and South Asia, edited by M. Mendoza and A. Lakshminarayanan, 83–92. European Association of Archaeologists (EEA), Themes in Contemporary Archaeology. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. 
  • 2025. As editor. Jaina Culture in Medieval Karnataka: Dominance, Dependency and Endurance. Dependency and Slavery Studies 18. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter. 
  • 2025. "Dependency on Water and the South Asian City: Questions of Location, Urban                Planning and Architectural Design." In Accessing Water in the South Asian City, edited by Sara Keller, 83–116. Delhi: Primus Books. 
  • 2025. "Ecological Dependencies and Resource- and Climate-Responsive Jaina Shrines            Along the Malabar Coast in South India." In Ecological Interdependencies: Strong Asymmetrical Relations and More-than-Human Worlds, edited by Z. Y. Gökçe and J. Leetsch, 87–111. Dependency and Slavery Studies 24. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter.
  • 2024. As editor. With Marion Gymnich. Images and Stories of the Origins of the World and of Humankind. Reality and Hermeneutics 7. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck Verlag.
  • 2024. Jaina Temple Architecture in India: The Development of a Distinct Language in Space and Ritual. Monographien zur indischen Archäologie, Kunst und Philologie 19. Heidelberg: Heidelberg Asian Studies. Access [G+H Verlag, Berlin, 2009; Indian Reprint, 
    Hindi Granth Karyalay, Mumbai, 2018]
  • 2024. "Dependencies on Water in the Urban History of Early South Asia." In Handbook on Urban History of Early India, edited by Aloka Parasher Sen, 149–169. Singapore: Springer. 
  • 2024. "Digambara Jaina monks in India: Rejecting Dependencies on Clothing." Digital Exhibition: "Enmeshed & Entwined: Textures of Dependency." Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, The University of Bonn. Access  [last accessed: 31.10.2024]
  • 2024. "Vīraśaiva and Jaina Rivalries in Medieval South India: Creating and Overcoming Structures of Dependency." In Control, Coercion, and Constraint: The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency, edited by W. Kinzig and B. Loose, 155–177. Dependency and Slavery Studies 14. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter. 
  • 2024. "Tea and Colonial India." In Dependent: Global Perspectives on the History of Resources and Slavery, edited by M. Bentz, N. Grube, and Patrick Zeidler, 206–211. Sandstein Verlag. 
  • 2023. As editor. Embodied Dependencies and Freedoms: Artistic Communities and Patronage in Asia. Dependency and Slavery Studies. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter. 
  • 2022 "Dependency, Subjugation and Survival: A Working Paper on the Jaina Culture in Medieval Karnataka, South India." BCDSS Working Papers 9: 1–35. Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies.
  • 2021. Jaina Tradition of the Deccan: Shravanabelagola, Mudabidri, Karkala. Deccan Heritage Foundation India. Deccan Heritage Foundation / Jaico Guidebook Series. Mumbai: Jaico Publishing House.
  • 2021 "Extreme Dependency as a Creative Catalyst in Early Indo-Islamic Architecture of the Slave Dynasty." In 'Das alles hier.' Festschrift für Konrad Klaus zum 65. Geburtstag, edited by Ulrike Niklas, Heinz Werner Wessler, Peter Wyzlic, and Stefan Zimmer, 151–174. Heidelberg: Xasia eBooks. 
  • 2020. In the Footsteps of the Masters: Footprints, Feet and Shoes as Objects of Veneration in Asian, Islamic and Mediterranean Art. Studies in Asian Art and Culture (SAAC) 7. Berlin: Eb-Verlag. 
  • 2015. As editor. Jaina Painting and Manuscript Culture: In Memory of Paolo Pianarosa. Studies in Asian Art and Culture (SAAC) 3. Berlin: EB-Verlag.
  • 2014. As editor. In the Shadow of the Golden Age: Art and Identity in Asia from Gandhara to the Modern Age. Studies in Asian Art and Culture (SAAC) 1. Berlin: EB-Verlag. 
  • 2012. As editor. With Subrata K. Mitra. Re-use. The Art and Politics of Integration and Anxiety. New Delhi: SAGE India.
  • 2011. As editor. The Jaina Heritage. Distinction, Decline and Resilience. New Delhi: Saṁskṛiti.
  • 2002. Water Architecture in South Asia. A Study of Types, Developments and Meanings. Studies in Asian Art and Architecture 24. Leiden: Brill.