Autumn 2011
The Many Worlds of Rabindranath Tagore
October 27-28, 2011
A public two-day conference in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth
Co-sponsored by the Department of South Asian Languages & Civilizations, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, and the Nicholson Center for British Studies.
Keynote Speakers:
Martha Nussbaum , University of Chicago. Tagore's Religion of Humanity
Anisuzzaman, Dhaka University. Tagore and Bengali Muslims
James Conlon, Los Angeles Opera. A Lyric Symphony: Tagore and Zemlinksy
Mukta Datta Tomar, Consul-General of India in Chicago, delivered a special welcome address.
For two days in October, the Committee on Southern Asian Studies co-hosted "The Many Worlds of Rabindranath Tagore", a conference dedicated to exploring poet, musician and writer Rabindranath Tagore.
Leading scholars from across the globe came together to interpret Tagore's life and works.
More than 100 participants experienced presentations, and joined in discussion on Tagore's philosophical outlook, his relationships in South Asia and abroad, and his musical influence.
Visit the conference website
The 4th Annual Chicago International Education Conference (IEC)
November 18, 2011
Theme: Educating for Global Competence
Co-sponsored by the University of Chicago Center for International Studies, Office of Civic Engagement, and Neighborhood Schools Program, the Chicago Public Schools Office of Language and Cultural Education, Chicago Sister Cities International, and International House.
Teachers and administrators worked in breakout sessions based on subject area to learn about ways to create engaging learning experiences through internationalizing classroom lessons. Facilitators shared best practices for adding a global dimension to classroom teaching.
South Asia Seminar series and Theory & Practice in South Asia (TAPSA) graduate student workshop, 2011-12:
- September 29: TAPSA: Iza Hussin, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Chicago
"Circulations of Law: Elites, Empire and Mobility across the Indian Ocean" - October 6: South Asia Seminar / Nicholson Center for British Studies: Mrinalini Sinha, Professor of History and Women's Studies, University of Michigan
"The Strange Death of an Imperial Ideal: The Case of Civis Britannicus" *NB: Held in Classics 110 at 4:30PM - October 7: Committee on Southern Asian Studies / Nicholson Center for British Studies Workshop: Mrinalini Sinha, Professor of History and Women's Studies, University of Michigan » Download the paper
"Projecting Power: Empires, Colonies, and World History" *NB: Held in Foster 103 at 12:00PM - October 13: South Asia Seminar: Sekhar Bandopadhyay, Professor of Asian history, Victoria University of Wellington
"Situating Dalit in the long history of Partition in Bengal 1946 - 2011" - November 1: Committee on Southern Asian Studies / Clinical Ethnography Workshop: Sarah Pinto , Associate Professor of Anthropology, Tufts University
"Rehabilitating Ammi: Psychosis and Subjects in a North Indian Family"
*NB: Held in the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at 4:30PM - November 3: South Asia Seminar: Vazira Zamindar, Associate Professor of History,
Brown University
"A Relic of History" - November 10: TAPSA: Meredith McGuire, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology
"New Delhi Cosmopolitan: Spatial Practice and the 'New' Middle Class" - November 17: South Asia Seminar: Thibaut d'Hubert, Assistant Professor, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago
"Editing the Nūrnāmā of Md Shafi': New Lights on Bengali Manuscripts in the Arabic Scripts" - December 1: TAPSA / Nicholson Center for British Studies: Robert Young, Julius Silver Professor of English and Comparative Literature, New York University
TBD
Winter 2012
South Asia Seminar and Theory and Practice in South Asia (TAPSA) graduate student workshop, 2011-12
- January 5: South Asia Seminar: Velcheru Narayana Rao, Visiting Distinguished Professor,
Emory University
TBD - January 12: TAPSA: SaunJuhi Verma, Ph.D. Candidate,Department of Sociology
"Trading in Migrants: Inter-Organizational Ties and the Making of a Migratory Channel" - January 19: South Asia Seminar: Arupjyoti Saikia, Visiting Scholar, Yale University
"Writing for the Nation and Inventing a Nation: Suryya Kumar Bhuyan’s Histories" - January 26: TAPSA: Roy Fischel, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Chicago, SALC
"A Queen with a Sword: Gender, Power, and Cultural Diffusion in the Deccan" - February 2: South Asia Seminar: Matthew Hull, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan
"Paper, Databases, and the Ontology of Land Holdings in South Asia"
- February 9: TAPSA: Joy Brennan, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Chicago, Divinity School
"Dharmas and Being in Mind-only Buddhist Thought" - February 16: South Asia Seminar: Rajeev Kinra, Assistant Professor, Northwestern University
"Civility and its Discontents: The Use and (More Often) Abuse of Mughal Letters" - February 23: TAPSA: Pierre-Julien Harter, Ph.D. Candidate, Divinity School
"Epistemological and soteriological considerations about the Path of Vision (darśanamārga) in the Buddhist path as elaborated in the literature of the Abhisamayākāra." - March 1: South Asia Seminar: Syed Akbar Hyder, Associate Professor, The University of Texas at Austin
"Oneness of Suffering: Religion, Art, Region and Patronage in Urdu" - March 8: TAPSA: Deepa Das Acevedo, University of Chicago, Dept. of Anthropology
"Divine Bachelors, Female Devotees and the Law at Sabarimala, 2006 - 2011"
South Asian Sound Interventions (SASI) presents: Songcraft in South Indian Cinema 
February 13th - 17th, 2012
This February, the University of Chicago community experienced several events related to the week-long visit of South Indian music director, Jassie Gift, and keyboardist Vijay Jacob.
Sponsored by the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, in conjunction with the University of Chicago Department of Music.
Guided by renowned performer Jassie Gift, and keyboardist Vijay Jacob, "Songcraft in South Indian Cinema" presented four innovative workshops and events that explored the cinematic musical traditions of South India.
- Two Workshops on Cinematic Song Crafting - an overview of the creative process and collaborative song crafting session
- Malayalam Film Screening of "4 the People" followed by a Conversation with Music Director, Jassie Gift.
- Audible Intimacies: A Symposium on Song in South Indian Cinema
- A Garland of South Indian Film Songs Featuring Jassie Gift on vocals and Vijay Jacob, keyboard
Nature's Pasts, Nature's Futures: Perspectives on India's Environmental History
with Mahesh Rangarajan
March 12, 2012
Sponsored by the Program on the Global Environment and the Committee on Southern Asian Studies.
India's significance in political and economic terms in the 21st century is paralleled by its centrality to the larger ecological changes in Asia and the world are easy to miss. In turn, the many layers of millennia old contact, conflict and interaction between people and nature circumscribes as well as opens up opportunities.
The word 'crisis' is often used in the context of vanishing rare biota, the transformation of river, flood plain and forest due to epochal economic and political changes over the last two centuries. Specifically, changes in patterns of human settlement and mobility, technologies of production and transport, and systems of access and control of the wealth of nature have underpinned and accompanied ecological shifts.
Yet, a longer view may actually allow for a better appreciation not only of dilemmas but of new challenges. Competing claims on resources and living and work spaces are being played out in an age of unprecedentedly high economic growth. At the same time, contests over nature are linked to those over knowledge and power. Rival views of nature and justice complicate issues. The frame of constitutional democracy provides spaces for these debates and contests. How they play out will hinge in part on how far we can creatively learn from our pasts.
Mahesh Rangarajan is a researcher, author and historian with a special interest in environmental history and colonial history of British India. He appears frequently on Indian television as a political analyst. He is also a columnist in the print media writing on wildlife conservation, political and environmental issues. Mahesh Rangarajan taught and lectured at Oxford and he is presently the Director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, while on long-leave from his position as Professor of history at Delhi University. In 1988, he was awarded the Martin Wright Prize at Balliol College and the Charles Wallace Scholar and Beit Scholar at Nuffield College, Oxford University in 1991.
Spring 2012
South Asia Seminar and Theory and Practice in South Asia (TAPSA) graduate student workshop, 2011-12
All seminars and talks will take place in the South Asia Commons (Foster Hall room 103) at 4:30 pm unless otherwise noted.
- March 29: TAPSA: Matthew Rich, PhD Candidate, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Chicago
"Languages of Secrecy and the Secreting of Language Among the Khasi of Northeastern Bangladesh" - April 19: South Asia Seminar: Saymon Zakaria , noted Bengali playwright and Thibaut d'Hubert Dept. of South Asian Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago
TBD - April 23: TAPSA: Asif Farrukhi, prominent Urdu writer and literary critic
"Lahu aur Phul: Themes and Patterns in Contemporary Urdu Literature" - April 26: TAPSA: Sonam Kachru, Divinity School, University of Chicago
"For A Burnt Stone And A Length Of Trouser To Write On: Scenes From The Lives Of Kashmiri Poems In Translation" - May 3: South Asia Seminar: Gregory Savarimuthu, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Kannur University
TBD - May 10: TAPSA: Rumya S. Putcha, Dept. of Music, University of Chicago
"Mythical Courtesans and Modern Wives: Performance and Womanhood in South India" - May 17: South Asia Seminar: A. Azfar Moin, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Southern Methodist University,
"Shrine Destruction in Iran and Temple Desecration in India: A Framework for Comparison" - May 24: South Asia Seminar: Ritu Birla, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Toronto
"Embeddedness and the Corporate Personality in India: Legal History as Economic History" - May 31: South Asia Seminar: Projit Mukharji, Assistant Professor, Department of History & Sociology, University of Pennsylvania
"Nitrogen or Nytrojane? Race, Colonialism and Vernacular Materialities, Bengal c. 1900-30"
Ninth Annual South Asia Graduate Student Conference
April 5-6, 2012
The Annual South Asia Graduate Student Conference @ The University of Chicago
Thursday & Friday, April 5-6, 2012
Swift Hall
1025 East 58th Street
Panels on Day 1 and 2: Swift Commons (First Floor)
Keynote Address on Day 1 and 2: Swift Lecture Hall (Third Floor)** Please note Swift Lecture Hall is the large room with double doors directly to the right of the 3rd floor elevators.
Free and open to the public.
FOR MORE INFORMATION » http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/sagsc/sagsc-2012/
CONFERENCE PROGRAM » http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/sagsc/
*** The Committee on Southern Asian Studies at the University of Chicago is pleased to announce The Ninth Annual South Asia Graduate Student Conference.
The South Asia Graduate Student Conference held annually at the University of Chicago has grown to become a much anticipated event in the academic circles of not only the Universities in the United States but also from other continents like Europe and Asia. Read more here.
Sponsored by the University of Chicago's Committee on Southern Asian Studies and the Center for International Studies.
For questions about this event, please contact Arvind Elangovan at arvi29@uchicago.edu. Persons that may need special assistance should contact the Committee on Southern Asian Studies in advance at (773) 702-8637.
April 27-28, 2012
The 3rd Norman Cutler Conference on South Asian Literature
Featuring Bangla Author Raghab Bandyopadhyay and Playwright Saymon Zakaria
Friday & Saturday, April 27-28, 2012
Foster Hall, Room 103
1130 East 59th Street
Free and open to the public.
FOR MORE INFORMATION » http://cosal.uchicago.edu/index.shtml
*** 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 Bengali novelist RAGHAB BANDYOPADHYAY and playwright SAYMON ZAKARIA.
RAGHAB BANDYOPADHYAY will discuss some of his works and talk about the creative usage of Bangla prose.
SAYMON ZAKARIA will introduce us to his plays and talk about the continuum between traditional performances and contemporary theater in Bangladesh.
The underlying theme of the conference is "Dui Bangla" or Bangla as the language of the state of West Bengal and as the national language of Bangladesh. Struggles around the Bangla language--its origins, lexicon, texts, grammar, and pronunciation--played a critical role in the struggles that culminated in the creation of East Pakistan in 1947 and Bangladesh in 1971. Despite contestations, Bangla and the linguistic identity that grew out of sharing the same language plays a complex but understudied role in the imagination of Bengali people in India and Bangladesh. Bangla remains a central issue in the definition of the cultural, political and religious identities of the people living on both sides of the border. This conference is an exploration of this bicephalous literary culture: two heads that never stopped speaking to each other. The event brings together scholars who will discuss the various aspects of Bangla language and literature in India and Bangladesh and, more generally, the multifarious forms of Bangla language that reflects the complexity and heterogeneity of the cultural landscape of Bengal.
The keynote will be given by CLINTON B. SEELY, Professor Emeritus, department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations (SALC), the University of Chicago.
FULL PARTICIPANT PANEL » http://cosal.uchicago.edu/2012/participants.shtml
DETAILS & PROGRAM » http://cosal.uchicago.edu/2012/program.shtml
Cosponsored by the University of Chicago's Committee on Southern Asian Studies, the Franke Institute for the Humanities and the Norman Wait Harris Memorial Fund.
For questions about this event, please contact Thibaut d'Hubert at dhubert@uchicago.edu. Persons with disabilities that may need assistance should contact the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations in advance at (773) 702-8373.
EXPERIMENTA India: A Festival of Experimental Cinema from India
March 28, 2012
Co-Sponsored by the University of Chicago's South Asia Language and Area Center, The Committee on Southern Asian Studies & the Film Studies Center
WHEN: Wednesday March 28th
TIME: 4:00pm-6:30pm
WHERE: Doc Films, Max Palevsky Cinema, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL
What are possible cinematic entry points to addressing the context of experimental filmmaking in India?
From experiments in animation, found footage and stylised montage in the late 60's and early 70's to the most recent innovations in experimental narrative and documentary, this selection of films and videos offer a peek into the aesthetic and socio political complexities of experimental filmmaking in India.
Curated by Shai Heredia who will be present to introduce the programs
Opening Remarks by Professor Rochona Majumdar, Associate Professor, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations
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PROGRAM 1 (34mins)
1. 'And I Make Short Films' S.N.S.Sastry 1968 B&W sound 16 mins 35mm on dvd
2. 'Trip' Pramod Pati 1970 B&W sound 4 mins 35mm on dvd
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3. 'Abid' Pramod Pati 1972 colour sound 5 mins 35mm on dvd
4. 'Claxplosion' Pramod Pati India 1968 B&W sound 2mins 35mm on dvd
Using pixilation and electronic music, this is an experimental family planning film
5. 'Explorer' Pramod Pati India 1968 B&W sound 7 mins 35mm on dvd
PROGRAM 2 (70mins)
1. 'Jan Villa' Natasha Mendonca, India 2011 16mm on dvd colour & b&w sound 20mins
2. 'City Beyond' Shreyasi Kar India 2011 DV colour sound 10mins
3. 'Bare' Santana Issar, India 2006 colour sound 11mins
A poignant short in which the filmmaker uses home-movie footage and recorded telephone conversations to reach out to her alcoholic father.
4. 'There is Something In the Air' Iram Ghufran, India 2011 DV colour sound 29mins
March 30, 2012
COSAS Spring Quarter Art Exhibition: "Creative Impulse... from Bengal"
featuring the paintings of fine artist and classical instrumentalist Shubhankar Adhikari
Join us as we kick off the Spring Quarter with an exhibition showcasing the watercolor prints of new and upcoming artist, Shubhankar Adhikari.
Based in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, Shubhankar Adhikari "considers his painting as visual music - or music for the eyes. He is a self-taught artist dedicated to creativity in different aspects of the arts. Shubhankar believes that our mind could be better nourished and more productive if our painting works are given birth with musical notes flying through the air". For Shubhankar painting and music are the spontaneous expression of the creative impulse within him. In addition to being a painter, Shubhankar is a sitarist, and much of his artwork is influenced by his background as a classical instrumentalist.
A reception will accompany the exhibition
Refreshments will be served
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Opening Reception Friday March 30th 3:00pm-5:00pm Foster Hall, Room 103 |
Viewing Hours March 30-June 15 Fridays, 3:00-5:00PM Foster Hall, Room 103 |
April 9, 2012
Film Screening: "The Truth that Wasn't There"
The award-winning feature documentary about the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s civil war
WHEN: Monday, April 9th
TIME: 4:00pm
WHERE: Foster Hall 103, 1130 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL
Opening remarks and introduction by Professor Sascha Ebeling, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations
Comments by filmmakers Guy Gunaratne and Heidi Lindvall and Jim McDonald, Sri Lanka Country Specialist, Amnesty International USA
The film is a real-time capture of post-war blood-drenched Sri Lanka that witnessed the ethnic conflict for 26 long years and came to a bitter end in May 2009.Student journalists, Guy Gunaratne and photographer Heidi Lindvall were given special access into the media-forbidden pockets of Sri Lanka, especially to the reduced-to-rubble Kilinochchi. Towards the end of their poignant journey, they also became the first overseas journalists to become the witnesses of the horrific aftermath of the final civil war in Mullaitivu and Chalai,thereby eliminating the danger of a horrendous conflict going unrecorded without witnesses.
Sponsored by The South Asia Language and Area Center, The Committee on Southern Asian Studies, and Amnesty International, USA
April 13, 2012
Lecture Demonstration: "Between Bhakti and Rakti: Emotion, Affect and the Self in Indian Classical Dance"
Sponsored by The Department of Music, COSAS, and presented with Apsara
with Rumya S. Putcha, PhD (The University of Chicago)
WHEN: Friday April 13th
TIME: 12:30pm-1:30pm
WHERE: Fulton Recital Hall, 5845 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL
This workshop examines the ways in which dancers working in multiple and diasporic settings engage with rasa, abhinaya and conventional modes of representation in Indian classical dance. As a historically-informed performance practice, Indian classical dance often focuses on two tropes of feminine expression, bhakti (devotion to God) and rakti (devotion to a lover). In the workshop we will explore how, as female dancers working in a time and space vastly different from that of our contemporaries in India, we engage with our ideas of womanhood as bhakti, rakti or something else entirely through rasa and abhinaya and, in doing so, bring our own deeply personal emotions to bear on an evocation of the self in dance.
May 28, 2012
South Asian Vocal Ensemble: "Swara Sangeet: A Recital of South Indian Classical Music"
A Recital of South Indian Classical Music
WHEN: Monday May 28th
TIME: 3:00pm
WHERE: Fulton Recital Hall, 4th floor, Goodspeed Hall, 1010 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL
Accompanied by Akshaya Kannan, violin and Kaushik Vasudevan, mridangam
Under the direction of Mrs. Minu Pasupathi
Sponsored by The Department of Music and the Committee on Southern Asian Studies
Reception to follow
Refreshments will be served
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June 01, 2012
Film Screening: "PATANG (The Kite)"
the award-winning feature film about six people transformed by India's largest kite festival
WHEN: Friday, June 1 at 3:30 pm
WHERE: Kent 107, 1020 East 58th Street
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