Summer 2008
June 23-25, 2008
2008 Summer Teacher Institute
Climate Change: Biological & Social Implications
Co-sponsored by the Center for International Studies and the East Asian, East European and Russian/Eurasian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern area studies centers.
Curriculum unit, presentations, and resources
Intended primarily for elementary through community college teachers, this 3-day workshop will explore climate change from a global perspective, through the following daily themes: Global warming and its effects on the biological and physical environment; Economic and social issues; Policy and national security. Additional topics include carbon sequestration; water access and use; and the future roles of China, India, the Middle East, and the United States in curbing carbon emissions.
July 28, 2008
A Discussion with Jatin Das
Co-sponsored by the Center for International Studies and Around the Coyote Gallery
Jatin Das, born in Mayurbhanj, Orissa, has been painting for than 45 years and has held over 50 one-man exhibitions in India and abroad. He works in a variety of media, including oil, watercolor, ink, graphics, and conte. He is also the founder of the JD Centre of Art, which is being built in his home state of Orissa.
This was Das' first trip to Chicago in nearly ten years. Das discussed his own artwork as well as the current art scene in India
Autumn 2008
October 10, 2008
A 1950 Gujarati Village and its People: Drawings by Robert Steed
Curated by Professor Emeritus McKim Marriot
The South Asia Language and Area Center and The Committee on Southern Asian Studies presents an exhibition of sketches by artist Robert Steed in Foster 103 during the fall quarter. A skillful portraitist, designer, and art teacher of New York City in the mid-century, Robert Steed (1903-95) accompanied his wife, Columbia University Anthropology graduate student Gitel Poznanski Steed (1907-77) on her year-long study of social life in “Kasandra,” an agricultural village on the western edge of Ahmedabad District. They resided there in 1949-50, when Gujarat (like most other states of India) was abolishing landlord tenures.
Pursuing Ruth Benedict’s and Margaret Mead’s National Character quest, Gitel collected life stories from 50 villagers, one result being her paper on the conflicted personality of a local Rajput landlord (Village India, [ed.] Marriott, Chicago 1955). Visually paralleling Gitel’s inquiries are Robert’s sketches of village people of all classes, 80 of whom appear here. All the Steeds’ original field notes, which include many other materials, are archived in 96 boxes in the Special Collections department of the University of Chicago Library, where they have been used for theses by students in several departments and remain available for further researches.
The copies of sketches and the painting shown here are loans from McKim Marriott, who curated and produced the exhibition with funding from the South Asia Outreach Project. The exhibition will be open for public viewing on Thursdays 1-4 pm and Mondays 11am-1pm throughout the fall quarter starting October 17th.
Ocobter 10, 2008
A Jihad for Love
Screenings and discussions with filmmaker Parvez Sharma
Co-sponsored by the Center for International Studies, International House, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Center for Gender Studies, Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture, Partnership for the Advancement of Refugee Rights, Film Studies Center, Committee on Cinema & Media Studies, Middle East Documentation Center, Amnesty International, and Students for Human Rights
Islam today is the world's second largest and fastest growing religion. Muslim gay filmmaker Parvez Sharma travels the many worlds of this dynamic faith discovering the stories of its most unlikely storytellers: lesbian and gay Muslims. Filmed over 5 1/2 years, in 12 countries and 9 languages, A Jihad for Love comes from the heart of Islam. Looking beyond a hostile and war-torn present, this film seeks to reclaim the Islamic concept of a greater Jihad, which can mean 'an inner struggle' or 'to strive in the path of God'. In doing so the film and its remarkable subjects move beyond the narrow concept of 'Jihad' as holy war.
A Jihad for Love was screened for large groups of students at a number of South Side Chicago Public Schools, with Q&A sessions with Parvez Sharma at each screening. An additional screening for the University community and the public was held at International House.
October 21, 2008
Children Playing Gods: The Ramlila Project
Screenings and discussions with filmmaker Irfana Mazumdar
Co-sponsored by the Center for International Studies
In the month of October, the streets of the city of Varanasi are transformed into dramatic stages, where the "gods" descend onto the earth and play. Who are the children who become gods? What are their lives like? What do they learn? A group of actors, artists, and teachers worked with children from a Varanasi neighborhood to teach theatre, history, and self-identity. They encountered support and prejudice from the community and a child's world unforgiving in its realities and universal in its imagination and discoveries. This film is about their journey.
Children Playing Gods was screened twice for approximately 400 middle and high school students from Chicago Public School , bused in to the University of Chicago's Max Palevsky Cinema, who then had the opportunity for Q&A with Irfana Mazumdar. A third screning was held for the University community and the public.
Irfana Majumdar (director, editor) is a theatre director, documentary filmmaker, and teacher, living in Varanasi. She works with NIRMAN, a non-profit working for education and the arts. Arshad Mirza (photographer, editing assistant) is a designer, illustrator, and dancer, also working with NIRMAN. Their previous films, "Images of Indian Children: Work and Play" and "Anupriya" have been screened at conferences and talks in the USA and India. This film is a culmination of a six-month project on children and the Ramlila by the NIRMAN Theatre Studio.
October 22, 2008
The Pashai of Darrai Nur, Afghanistan
Lecture by Ghulamsakhi Rustamkhan, Director of Rubia, Darrai Nur, Afghanistan
Mr. Rustamkhan is a speaker of Pashai, an Indo-Aryan language spoken by an ethnolinguistic minority whose home is Darrai Nur, in the Hindu Kush Mountains in Eastern Afghanistan. He is the founder of Rubia, an economic and educational empowerment non-profit organization for Afghan women. He will talk informally about his language and cultural community, and the general ethnolinguistic situation in Afghanistan.
October 31, 2008
Punches & Ponytails
Screening and discussion with filmmaker Pankaj Kumar
Co-sponsored by the Center for Gender Studies
The film is a journey into the sweet science of boxing being practiced by two Indian women. The film unfolds with them as they wrestle with their day-to-day existence of being a boxer and the conflicts that surround them. While one of the boxers, is comprehending and dealing with her own sexuality, the other struggles with the limitations of her own body and the need to prove that she too can box like her brother. Using cinema verité style and shot over a period of two and a half years, the film articulates the boxers’ concerns and shares experiences and ideas about their future.
Produced with support from Jan Vrijman Fund, GoteborgFilm festival Fund. Additional support from MAJLIS and SARAI (India). Festivals – Göteborg, Stuttgart, SANFIC (Chile), IAAC (New York) and IDFA (Amsterdam).
Winter 2009
January 16, 2009
Terror in Mumbai: Reflections on the Aftermath
Co-sponsored by the International House Global Voices series
A response to and panel discussion on the November 26-29, 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, featuring Manan Ahmed, Tarini Bedi, Martha Nussbaum, Robert Pape, and Steven Wilkinson.
Spring 2009
April and May 2009
Lecture and Exhibition Series:
Literature of Partition, Population Displacement, and Division
In April and May 2009, CIS will present a variety of events on the theme of "Partitions, Divisions, and Population Exchanges," culminating with a May 1-2 conference on Partition Violence.
Through the lecture series, sculpture exhibition, and film screening and discussion, we take a comparative and humanistic approach to partitions, featuring scholars whose work examines the representation, narration, and memorialization of experiences of partition and related forms of population exchange or forced relocation.
The conference on Partition Violence will bring social scientists together to examine causes of violence and local level variation in levels of violence during the India/Pakistan partition, with a goal of understanding how violence and the spread of violence might be mitigated in other cases of population transfer and exchange.
Co-sponsors include the Department of Visual Arts, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies, and International House.
- FRIDAY, APRIL 3 - FRIDAY, APRIL 17
Pritika Chowdhry, "What the Body Remembers"
Sculpture exhibit at the DOVA Temporary Gallery, 5228 S. Harper Ave.
Read more about the exhibition.. - MONDAY, APRIL 27 • 4:30 PM, Classics 110
Kumkum Sangari, Vilas Professor of English, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
"Obliquely/Partition and Bombay Cinema" - THURSDAY, APRIL 30 • 6:00-8:00 PM, International House Assembly Hall
Tariq Ali, Novelist, historian, and New Left Review editor
"Partition, 60 Years On," a screening and discussion of the 1987 film Partition, adapted by Tariq Ali from Saadat Hasan Manto's famous short story "Toba Tek Singh" and directed by Ken McMullen. - MAY 1-2
Conference: Partition Violence
Organized by Steven Wilkinson, Associate Professor of Political Science
The focus of this conference is on explaining the macro- and micro-dynamics of partition violence from a variety of empirical and theoretical perspectives. What accounts for variation in violence? Does partition “solve” ethnic conflicts or create terrible security dilemmas which worsen the likelihood of violence? Why does violence vary so much over time and place?
April 3, 2009
Obama's Af-Pak Strategy: Richard Holbrooke Ordered Daal at Coco's
This open discussion will focus on the recently announced strategy to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan." The discussion will follow the participants and their concerns. Bring your lunch. Manan Ahmed and Atiya Khan will host and moderate. Manan Ahmed is a recent PhD in the history of Islam in South Asia and blogger on international affairs focusing on media and Pakistan. Atiya Khan is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Chicago.
April 14, 2009
The Current State of Conflict in Mindinao and Southern Thailand
Co-sponsored by the Center for International Studies and the Committee on International Relations
Panel discussion with Jaran Maluleem, Thammasat University, Thailand; Jason Roy Tomale Sibug, Children International-Manila, Quezon City, Philippines; and Abdurrahman Tondog Canacan, Mindinao State University, General Santos City, Philippines.
April 16, 2009
Slumdog Millionaire
The South Asia Language & Area Center and the Hindi Film Society present a panel discussion on the cinematic and sociocultural implications of this year's Best Picture...Followed by a FREE Screening of the film!
Panel discussion featuring Leela Gandhi, Professor of English; William Mazzarella, Associate Professor of Anthropology; Rochona Majumdar, Assistant Professor of South Asian Languages & Civilizations; and Liza Weinstein, Ph.D candidate in Sociology. Moderator: Tarini Bedi, Associate Director, South Asia Language & Area Center.
April 16, 2009
Returned: Child Soldiers of Nepal's Maoist Army
Screening and discussion with filmmaker Robert Koenig
Shangri-La to Hell in Ten Years: How did Nepal, a peaceful landlocked country, become home to the most dramatic Maoist insurgency in modern history? RETURNED: Child Soldiers of Nepal’s Maoist Army tells the personal story of Nepali boys and girls as they attempt to rebuild their lives after fighting a Maoist revolution. Through the voices of former child soldiers, the film examines why these children joined the Maoists and explores the prevention of future recruitment.
Robert Koenig, president of Adventure Production Pictures, is an Emmy Award-nominated producer and writer who has completed several documentaries on human rights in Mongolia and Nepal. His work has been seen on PBS, ABC, CBS, and NBC stations throughout the country.
April 17-18, 2009
6th South Asia Graduate Student Conference:
Foundations for the Study of South Asia
Keynote Address: Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Navin and Pratima Doshi Chair of Indian History, Department of History, UCLA: "Connecting the Dots: Some Ways of Re-Framing South Asian History"
What are the foundational categories that shape research on South Asia? How do such seemingly basic categories such as Space, Time, Person, Thing, Knowledge, Action and Representation, concepts more often assumed than interrogated, inflect and inform our scholarship? Our aim in focusing on such basic categories is to bring into view the analytical axes that orient us to our materials. We also hope to encourage a broad cross-section of scholars, working on ancient, medieval, early modern and modern topics, from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
1) Space- what is the nature of boundaries, imaginative or political, in South Asia?
2) Time- what constitutes the divide between the modern and pre-modern in the study of South Asian history?
3) Thing- in a rapidly changing economy, how does the student of South Asian material culture approach the study of things? What is the status of an archeological artifact in the study
of South Asia?
4) Person- what models of personhood does the study of South Asia offer us? How have markers of identity, like caste or gender, evolved conceptually in the field?
5) Knowledge- is there a basis for a specifically South Asian epistemology? What constitutes knowledge in different times and areas of South Asia?
6) Action- what is the relationship of theory and practice in South Asian scholarship today? What does it mean “to act” within specific South Asian traditions of thought or culture?
7) Representation- as scholars working on South Asia, do we have “constituencies”? What does it mean to represent “South Asia” in the context of scholarly work?
By bringing together young scholars who employ similar categories under different cultural formations and time periods, we hope to provide the occasion and means for researchers to address issues in comparative light. In an increasingly fragmented research environment, we hope to promote more broad-based discussions of the study of South Asia under the long shadow of Modernity.
May 8-9, 2009
The 2nd Biennial Norman Culter Conference on South Asian Literature
The Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago is pleased to announce the Second Biennial Norman Cutler Conference on South Asian Literature (COSAL), featuring noted Hindi author Manzoor Ahtesham.
Manzoor Ahtesham will talk about his work and his experience as both a Hindi writer and a ‘Muslim writer’ in Hindi. The program also features a bilingual reading from his novels.
Bridging the Hindi-Urdu divide, the event brings together a group of eminent scholars of Hindi and Urdu. Their papers will cover a range of topics relating to contemporary Hindi and Urdu prose fiction, its themes and aesthetics. The conference will explore the historical and social experience of Indian Muslims from a literary perspective, examine the construction of community identity, and address how the contested issue of Hindu-Muslim relations is represented in various literary writings from the nineteenth century to the present day.
The keynote lecture will be given by Shamim Hanfi, Professor emeritus of Urdu, Jamia Millia Islamia (New Delhi).
The 2009 COSAL is sponsored by the University of Chicago's Committee on Southern Asian Studies and the Franke Institute for the Humanities.
May 14-15, 2009
Sound Works: A Symposium on Musicians & Media in South Asian Cities
Despite the tremendous contemporary and historical relevance of popular music practices in the daily lives or listeners from wide-ranging social backgrounds, music scholarship has only recently begun taking South Asian imaginary and real popular music worlds seriously. With the intention of generating new research synergies in the burgeoning field of South Asia popular music studies, South Works: A Symposium on Musicians & Media in South Asia Cities, held at the University of Chicago's Franke Institute for the Humanities, included multiple disciplinary standpoints, from ethnomusicology and anthropology, to literary criticism, sociology, and film and media studies. The overarching theme of sound producers at work opened an expansive yet focused space to explore themes that take cultural life and material life to be interrelated rather than separate.
View/download Sound Works program
Related events:
Screening of Lars Christian-Koch's Rudra Vina
at the Franke Institute, Thursday 5/14, 6pm
An Evening of South Asian Music
at the Experimental Station, Friday 5/15, 6:30pm
A South Asian music concert, featuring Prof. Sanjoy Bandopadhyay (sitar), Sandip Burman (tabla), Sathpak, and the Devon Audio Mapping Project.
May 21-22, 2009
Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath
Screenings and discussions with filmmakers Valerie Kaur and Sharat Raju
Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture and the Human Rights Program
Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath is the first feature-length independent documentary film about hate violence in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. The journey to make the film began when 20-year old college student Valarie Kaur drove across the country in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, documenting stories in the Sikh, Muslim, and Arab American communities. Over the next five years, Valarie Kaur's journey unfolded into a larger exploration of 'who counts' as American. In 2005, award-winning director Sharat Raju and his film crew joined Valarie as she retraced her steps across the country, revisiting her original interviewees and interviewing scholars, lawyers, and legislators about race, religion, and security in post-9/11 America.
Divided We Fall was screened for 50 4th and 5th graders at North Kenwood/Oakland Elementary School, and a workshop on hate violence was led by Valerie Kaur and Sharat Raju. A workshop on documentary filmmaking was held at the University of Chicago, as well as a screening for the University community and the public at International House.
South Asia Seminar series and Theory & Practice in South Asia (TAPSA) graduate student workshop, 2008-09:
Autumn 2008
- October 28: TAPSA: Julia Cassaniti, Department of Comparative Human Development
"'Cool It'! The Role of Emotion in a Thai Buddhist Community" - October 9: South Asia Seminar: William Mazzerella, Associate Professor Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago
"The Obscenity of Censorship" - October 23: South Asia Seminar: D. Dilip Kumar
"Readings from the Short Story 'Kaditham' and Discussion" - November 6: TAPSA: Mona Mehta, Department of Political Science
"The River of No Dissent: Popular Consensus and Exclusion in the Narmada Dam Movement" - November 13: TAPSA: Amanda Hamilton, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations
"From 'Eurasian Bastards' to 'East-Indian Citizens': Creating a Hybrid Community, Calcutta 1820-1830" - November 20th: South Asia Seminar: Suryasikha Pathak, Fulbright Fellow, SUNY-Oswego
"Sites of Conflict: Identity and Insurgency in Postcolonial Northeast India" - December 4: South Asia Seminar: Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions in the Divinity School, University of Chicago
"Including Dogs, Dalits and Women: An Alternative Narrative of the Hindus"
Winter 2009
- January 8: South Asia Seminar: Matthew Kapstein, Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Divinity School, University of Chicago
"The Rise of Wisdom Moon: Reflections on Translating a Sanskrit Allegory" - January 9: South Asia Seminar: Ebba Koch, Visiting Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University
"Visual Strategies of Imperial Self-Representation in Shah Jahan's Windsor Castle Padshahnama (1628-58)" - January 22: TAPSA: Jim Sykes, Department of Music
"Sound and Sociality: On Cultural Geography, Musical Migration, and Multicultural History in Sri Lanka" - January 29: South Asia Seminar: Sangita Gopal, Assistant Professor Department of English, University of Oregon
"Sealed with a Song: Conjugal Form in 1930s Hindi Cinema" - February 5: TAPSA: Mona Mehta, Department of Political Science
"Merchant of 'Mout' or MoU? The Politics of Economic Obscurantism in the 'Vibrant Gujarat Campaign'" - February 12: South Asia Seminar: Anand Pandian, Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University
"Cinematic Production of Locality: Landscapes of Affect in Tamil Film" - February 19: TAPSA: Urmila Nair, Department of Anthropology
"Patterns of Chronotopes--The Divine, the Mundane, their Poetics and Politics: The Nechung Propritiation Ritual in Tibetan Exile" - March 5: South Asia Seminar: Mark Liechty, Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology
"What is the 'Middle Class'? Theorizing the Middle Class in Time and Space" - March 12: South Asia Seminar: Sean Pue, Assistant Professor of Hindi Language and South Asian Language and Culture, Michigan State University
"Temporality and Difference in Pakistani Modernism"
Spring 2009
- April 9: TAPSA: Spencer Leonard, Departments of History and South Asian Languages and Civilizations
"The Metropolitan Moment: The East India Company Election of 1764 and the Establishment of Modern Imperialism" - April 13: South Asia Seminar: Robert Mayer, Numata Research Offier Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford
"The Noble Lasso of Methods, a Lotus Garland: A Mahayoga Text from Dunhuang in 84 Folios Associated with Padmasambhava, and its Transmission in Tibet" - April 16: South Asia Seminar: Lars-Christian Koch, Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv
"Copyright and Notation in the Cultural Shaping of Rabindra Sangit Interpretation: A Case Study on Transmission within a 'Tradition' in Contemporary Ethnomusicological Perspective" - April 23: TAPSA: Nusrat Chowdhury, Department of Anthropology
"The 'Phulbari Movement' and the Value of Politics in Bangladesh" - April 30: South Asia Seminar: Tarini Bedi, Associate Director South Asia Language and Area Center, University of Chicago
"Patrons, Power-Brokers, and Political Entrepreneurs: Shiv Sena Women on the Margins of Mumbai's Film-City" - May 7: South Asia Seminar: Ramachandram Nagaswamy, Director of Archaeology (retired), University of Kanchipuram
"Aesthetics of Indian Art" - May 14: South Asia Seminar: Ronojoy Sen, Visiting Fellow, National Endowment for Democracy
"In the Name of God: Regulating Religion in Indian Elections" - May 21: South Asia Seminar: Ruby Lal, Associate Professor Department of South Asian Studies, Emory University
"Birth of the Girl-Child: Speculations on the Nineteenth Century Reawakening" - May 28: TAPSA: Amanda Huffer, Department of the History of Religions, Divinity School
"From the Serampore Mission to the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago (HTGC): A History of 'American Hinduism'" - June 4: TAPSA: Karin Meyers, Department of the Philosophy of Religion, Divinity School
"Buddhism and Free Will" - June 5: South Asia Seminar: C.S. Lakshmi, Director, Sound & Picture Archive for Research on Women (SPARROW), Mumbai
"A Sky to Fly: Archiving Women's Lives in Words and Images"
Other Co-Sponsored Lectures and Events
With the Center for International Studies The World Beyond the Headlines series:
- Arvind Panagariya, Columbia University, November 5, 2008 -- "India: The Emerging Giant" (download video/audio)
- Juan Cole, University of Michigan, November 12, 2008 -- "Challenges for the New Administration in Iraq and Afghanistan" (download video/audio)
- Tariq Ali, journalist, author, and filmmaker, November 20, 2008 -- "The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power" (download video/audio)
With the Chicago Council on Global Affairs:
- His Excellency Anwar ul-Haq Ahady, Minister of Finance, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, October 15, 2008 -- "Rebuilding Afghanistan"
- Tariq Ali, journalist, author, and filmmaker, November 18, 2008 -- "Friendly Fire? Conflict and Crisis in Pakistan"
- Sumit Ganguly, Indiana University, March 27, 2009 -- "The Conundrum of Indo-Pakistani Relations"
- Arvind Subramaniam (Johns Hopkins University), Najma Heptulla (member of Indian Parliament Upper House), and Steven Wilkinson (University of Chicago), June 22, 2009 -- "India Rising to the Challenge? Prospects for Economic and Social Reforms"
With the Department of Art History and the Nicholson Center for British Studies:
Kajri Jain, University of Toronto, November 20, 2008 -- "Economic Intimacy, Aesthetic Distance: The Peculiar Fate of the Icon after Colonialism" -- and November 21, 2008 -- "Gods in the Bazaar: Naturalizing the Popular"
With the Illinois Humanities Council and the Program on the Global Environment:
Amita Baviskar, University of Delhi, January 24, 2009 -- "The Cultural Politics of Environment and Development: The Indian Experience" -- and January 25, 2009 -- "Cows, Cars and Cycle-Rickshaws: The Politics of Nature on the Streets of Delhi" (download video/audio)
With the Art and Politics of East Asia workshop:
Competing Nationalisms: China, Tibet and the West workshop, November 21, 2008, featuring Robert Barnett (Columbia University), Tsering Wangdu Shakya (University of British Columbia), Chaohua Wang (essayist), Scott Relyea (University of Chicago), and Saul Thomas (University of Chicago).