University of Pennsylvania, Department of South Asia Studies:

Departmental Colloquium and Occasional Speaker Series 2009-2010

All talks are jointly sponsored by the South Asia Center and the Department of South Asia Studies.  They are free and open to the public.

Fall 2009

*October 8  Bernard Bate, Anthropology, Yale University

'To persuade them into speech and action': Political Tamil and the Tamil Political,Madras 1905-1919

October 15  P. Sivakami, independent activist and writer, Chennai

The Budget:  Fair Share to Dalits

October 22  Deven Patel, South Asia Studies, UPenn

Who Creates the Canons of Sanskrit Literature?

October 29  Walt Hakala, South Asia Studies, UPenn

A Lone Banana:  Urdu's Unpardonable Puns

*November 5 Andrew Sartori, History, New York University

From 'Occupancy Ryot' to 'Mahomedan Ryot' in later 19th Century Bengal

November 12  Yael Rice, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Art History, UPenn

The Potency of Painting:  Oneiric and Talismanic Images at the Mughal Court

*November 19th  Vazira Zamindar, History, Brown University

Civilization, Nationalism and History:  Relics, People and the Politics of the Past

*December 3  Samira Sheikh, History, Vanderbilt University

Gat, jamat, moman, munivar:  belonging and belief for early modern Ismailis in western India

*December 10  Uday S. Mehta, Political Science, Amherst College

Title TBA

*Participants in Themed Occasional Speaker Series: Religon and the Concept of the People

*********************************************************************************

Classicism/Anti-Classicism: 2008-2009 Occasional Series of the South Asia Graduate Group Colloquium

In addition to co-sponsoring departments (noted below), all talks are jointly sponsored by the South Asia Center and the Department of South Asia Studies.  They are free and open to the public.

Time: Thursdays (except where noted) 12:00-2:00 PM
Place: Room 816 Williams Hall

Strategic uses of the category of "classical" (and its inverse "anti-classical") are ubiquitous in studies of civilizations with a long and continuing history.  As markers of time, space, cultural prestige, power relations, aesthetic taste, moral definition, and a host of other structural rubrics, the category of the "classical" (and its inverse) serves many purposes for historians, humanities scholars, social scientists, philosophers, and political activists.  The varied deployment of this binary (classical/anti-classical) in the contexts of South Asian civilizations has been, to say the least, under-interrogated and yet,  paradoxically, widely naturalized in discursive spaces.  The 2008-2009 South Asia Colloquium of the University of Pennsylvania seeks to address this question squarely by inviting members of the academic community whose work directly or implicitly speaks to the question of what is meant by "classical" and its corollary nomenclatures ("traditional," "pre-modern," etc.).  Because it lacks any unified view as a category of thought, an investigation into the ontology and phenomenology of the use of "classicism" and "anti-classicism" promises to yield interesting insights into the elusive nature of numerous other parallel binaries that often inform and stand-in for what is intended by the use of some form of the term "classical" or "anti-classical": stability/transformation; reproducibility/innovation; fixed value/indeterminate value; systemic/entropic; elite/subaltern; timeless/contemporary; trans-local/local; canonical/revisionist; purity/hybridity, etc. 

Occasional Series Events:
SPRING 2009

January 22, Anand Pandian, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Johns  Hopkins University: 
"Ripening with the Earth: On Maturity and Modernity in South India"
(Co-sponsored with the Department of Anthropology)

January 29, Bhavani Raman, Assistant Professor of History, Princeton University:
"Learning  on the Verandah: Textual Practice and Mnemonics in the Tamil Tinnai School"
(Co-sponsored with the Department of History)

February 5, Ram Karan Sharma, Visiting Professor of Sanskrit, University of Pennsylvania:
"What is 'Classical' about Classical Sanskrit Literature?"

February 12, Michael Meister, Professor of Art History, University of Pennsylvania:
"Reconstructing Pre-Classical Buddhist Narratives (Visual Reliefs)"
(Co-sponsored with the Department of Art History)

February 19, Brian Hatcher, Professor of Religion, Illinois Wesleyan University:
"Shastric Modernity and the Widow Marriage Debate"

February 26, Steven Hopkins, Associate Professor of Religion, Swarthmore College:
"Sanskrit in a Tamil Imaginary: The Hamsasandesa of Venkatanatha"

March 5, Harveen Mann, Loyola University, Chicago
Women's Role in the Quit India Movement


March 19, David Gitomer, Professor of Religious Studies, DePaul University:
"The 'Rules of Attraction': Sanskrit Dramatic Criticism and 'Appropriate' Erotic Behavior"
(Co-sponsored with the Program in Comparative Literature)

Also on Thursday, March 19
Time: 6:00 PM
Venue: Room 816 Williams
The Sexologist and the Poet: On Magnus Hirschfeld's Encounter with Rabindranath Tagore
talk by J. Edgar Bauer,Visiting Professor, Jain Vishwa Bharati University, Rajasthan India
Co-sponsored by the South Asia Center, South Asia Studies, English Department, and the Women's Studies Program & Alice Pail Center for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality

April 2, Patrick Olivelle, Professor of Asian Studies, University of Texas at Austin:
"Forming a Canon: The Literary and Political History of Dharmasastra"

April 9, William Pinch, Professor of History, Wesleyan University:
"Understanding Warlords, from Anupgiri to Akbar"
(Co-sponsored with the Department of History)

April 16, Sumit Guha, Professor of History, Rutgers University:
"Lexical Choices in the Cultural Politics of Peninsular India c.1300-1800"
(Co-sponsored with the Department of History)

April 23, Meena Radhakrishna, Reader, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University:
"Revisiting the 'Criminal Tribes' of  India"

FALL 2008

October 9: Andrew Nicholson, Assistant Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies, The State University of New York, Stony Brook 
"Creating the 'Eternal Dharma': Philosophy and Boundary Formation in Medieval India" 

October 16, Edwin Bryant, Associate Professor of Religion, Rutgers University:
"On the Early Origins of Classical Yoga"
(Co-sponsored with the Department of Religion)

October 23, Henri Schildt, Visiting Scholar, University of Pennsylvania:
"Rare Murals from Late Medieval Kerala"

November 6, Ludo Rocher, W. Norman Brown Professor of South Asia Studies, Emeritus., University of Pennsylvania:
"Classical and Not-so-classical: the Palimpsest of Hindu Law."

November 20, Jack Hawley, Professor of Religion, Barnard College:
"The Bhagavata Mahatmya and the Formation of 'Classic' Bhakti"

December 2, George Cardona, Emeritus Professor of Linguistics and Sanskrit, University of Pennsylvania:
"Innovation Disguised: Grammar, Logic, and Literature in early India" 
*********************************************************************************
FALL 2007 - SPRING 2008
Thursday, September 13, 2007
"Sumer to Meluha: Maritime activity on the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf in the third millenium BC"

12 Noon - 2 PM, Williams 816

Gregory Possehl, University of Pennsylvania
Part of this year's Occasional Series entitled "Publics Beyond Print: Technologies of Circulation in South Asia" Co-sponsored by the Department of South Asia Studies, The Annenberg School's Center for Global Communication Studies, The South Asia Center, The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, The Center for the Advanced Study of India, and The Department of Anthropology

Thursday, September 20, 2007
"When is a Rose Apple not a Rose?"

12 Noon - 2 PM,Van Pelt Library, Class of 1955 conference room, 2nd floor, room # 241
Michael Meister, University of Pennsylvania

Thursday, October 4, 2007
Democracy in India and Beyond
Panel Discussion on Partha Chatterjee’s Politics of the Governed with
Ritty Lukose (Graduate School of Education), Rogers Smith (Political Science Department), Greg Urban (Department of Anthropology), and Suvir Kaul (Department of English)
10 AM - 11:30 AM, Penn Humanities Forum, 3619 Locust Walk

Chandra Bhan Prasad,
"Indian Democracy: Exploding assumptions About Caste"
w/ Partha Chatterjee as discussant
12 - 1:30 PM, Penn Humanities Forum, 3619 Locust Walk
Cosponsored by Department of South Asia Studies, the Global Citizenship Group, and the Center for the Advanced Study of India

Thursday, October 11, 2007
"The Current Situation in Bangladesh"
12 Noon - 2 PM, Williams 816

Jon Cebra, former Director, American Center, Dhaka and Penn graduate

Thursday, October 18, 2007
"The Political Logics of Comparison: Benoy Sarkar's Global Sociology"
12 Noon - 2 PM, South Asia Reading Room, Room 551, Van Pelt Library

Manu Goswami, New York University

Thursday, October 25, 2007
"Poverty Reduction: Relevance of Vietnamese Experience for Bangladesh"
12 Noon - 1:30 PM, Williams 816

Munim Kumar Barai, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh
&
Fulbright Scholar of the University of Pennsylvania's Program in International Relations

NOVEMBER 2007

Thursday, November 1, 2007
"Defining the Space between a Classical Tamil Poet-Saint and her Biographer "

12 Noon - 1:30PM,Williams Hall 816

Karen Pechilis, Professor of Religious Studies, Drew University

Thursday, November 8, 2007 : CANCELLED due to illness
"Reflections on 'Islam in South Asia Practice': Is there a story to tell?"

12 Noon - 2 PM, South Asia Reading Room, Room 551, Van Pelt Library

Barbara Metcalf, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Cosponsored by the Center for the Advanced Study of India

Thursday, November 15, 2007
"The Making of Western Indology: Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company"

12 Noon - 2 PM,Williams Hall 816

Rosane Rocher & Ludo Rocher

Thursday, November 29, 2007
"Spectral Visualities in Karachi's Public Sphere"

12 Noon - 2 PM, Class of '55 room in Van Pelt Library
Iftikhar Dadi, Cornell University
Part of this year's Occasional Series entitled "Publics Beyond Print: Technologies of Circulation in South Asia" Co-sponsored by the Department of South Asia Studies, The Annenberg School's Center for Global Communication Studies, The South Asia Center, The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly , The Center for the Advanced Study of India, and The Department of Anthropology

DECEMBER 2007
Thursday, December 6, 2007
"A Record of All Languages: Speakers, Scribes and the making of the Linguistic Survey of Colonial India"

12 Noon - 2 PM, South Asia Reading Room, Room 551, Van Pelt Library

Shahid Amin, University of Delhi
Part of this year's Occasional Series entitled "Publics Beyond Print: Technologies of Circulation in South Asia" Co-sponsored by the Department of South Asia Studies, The Annenberg School's Center for Global Communication Studies, The South Asia Center, The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly , The Center for the Advanced Study of India, and The Department of Anthropology

JANUARY 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
"Wheels of Change: Religion, Politics and Vehicle Decoration in Pakistan"

12 Noon - 2 PM, Class of '55 room in Van Pelt Library
Jamal Elias, University of Pennsylvania
Part of this year's Occasional Series entitled "Publics Beyond Print: Technologies of Circulation in South Asia" Co-sponsored by the Department of South Asia Studies, The Annenberg School's Center for Global Communication Studies, The South Asia Center, The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, The Center for the Advanced Study of India, and The Department of Anthropology

Thursday, January 24, 2008
"Migration and 'Social' Remittance in India"
12 Noon - 2 PM, South Asia Reading Room, Room 551, Van Pelt Library
Devesh Kapur, Center for the Advanced Study of India
Part of this year's Occasional Series entitled "Publics Beyond Print: Technologies of Circulation in South Asia" Co-sponsored by the Department of South Asia Studies, The Annenberg School's Center for Global Communication Studies, The South Asia Center, The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, The Center for the Advanced Study of India, and The Department of Anthropology

FEBRUARY 2008

Thursday, February 7, 2008
"On and Off the Proscenium: Notes on Mourning "
12 Noon - 2 PM, Williams 816
Rimli Bhattacharya , Department of English, University of Delhi

Thursday, February 14, 2008
"The Ethical Public: Bimoral Circulation in Contemporary India"

12 Noon - 2 PM, South Asia Reading Room, Room 551, Van Pelt Library
Lawrence Cohen, University of California, Berkeley
Part of this year's Occasional Series entitled "Publics Beyond Print: Technologies of Circulation in South Asia" Co-sponsored by the Department of South Asia Studies, The Annenberg School's Center for Global Communication Studies, The South Asia Center, The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly , The Center for the Advanced Study of India, and The Department of Anthropology


Thursday, February 21, 2008
"Savage Gardens: The mythmaking potential of Sir Patrick Geddes"

12 Noon - 2 PM, Williams 816
Naveeda Khan, Johns Hopkins University
Part of this year's Occasional Series entitled "Publics Beyond Print: Technologies of Circulation in South Asia" Co-sponsored by the Department of South Asia Studies, The Annenberg School's Center for Global Communication Studies, The South Asia Center, The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, The Center for the Advanced Study of India, and The Department of Anthropology

Thursday, February 28, 2008
"The public of the bandh: Protest, performance and national identity in Nepal"

12 Noon - 2 PM, Class of '55 room in Van Pelt Library
Genevieve Lakier, Harvard University
Part of this year's Occasional Series entitled "Publics Beyond Print: Technologies of Circulation in South Asia" Co-sponsored by the Department of South Asia Studies, The Annenberg School's Center for Global Communication Studies, The South Asia Center, The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, The Center for the Advanced Study of India, and The Department of Anthropology

MARCH 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
"Nature, Nationalism and Public Intellectualism in India"

12 Noon - 2 PM, Center for the Advanced Study of India, 3600 Market Street, Suite 560
K. Sivaramakrishnan, Yale University


Thursday, March 13, 2008
SPRING BREAK: no colloquium


Thursday, March 20, 2008
"Genealogies of Pashto Oral Publication: Poetics of Class, Identity, and Patriarchal Hegemony in 1950s Afghanistan"

12 Noon - 2 PM, Williams 816
James Caron, Department of South Asia Studies
Part of this year's Occasional Series entitled "Publics Beyond Print: Technologies of Circulation in South Asia" Co-sponsored by the Department of South Asia Studies, The Annenberg School's Center for Global Communication Studies, The South Asia Center, The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, The Center for the Advanced Study of India, and The Department of Anthropology

Thursday, March 27, 2008
Ernest Bender Lecture series presents
5 PM, Venue: Myerson Conference Room 223, 2nd floor, Van Pelt Libraryl
Paul Dundas, Edinburgh University
hosted by Department of South Asia Studies & cosponsored by South Asia Center
Wine and Cheese reception to follow

APRIL 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Workers and Dependents: Categorizing women's labor in the first two decades of post-colonial India

12 Noon - 2 PM, Williams 816
Catherine Warner, South Asia Studies

Thursday, April 17, 2008
"Print and pleasure in the North Indian public space"

12 Noon - 2 PM, Venue: Williams 816
Francesca Orsini, The School of Oriental and Asian Studies

Part of this year's Occasional Series entitled "Publics Beyond Print: Technologies of Circulation in South Asia" Co-sponsored by the Department of South Asia Studies, The Annenberg School's Center for Global Communication Studies, The South Asia Center, The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly , The Center for the Advanced Study of India, and The Department of Anthropology

Thursday, April 24, 2008
Recognizing Historical Traditions in Early India

5 PM , Venue: Ben Franklin Room, Houston Hall
Romila Thapar, Jawaharlal University

2007

12 NOON TO 1:30PM ON THURSDAY, APR 5, 2007 IN WILLIAMS HALL, ROOM 816

"RAJUL SATI'S VEIL: JAIN NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN SATI DISCOURSE AND THE IDEOLOGY OF RENUNCIATION."

M. Whitney Kelting, Northeastern University

Abstract: Jain women negotiate between the ideologies of wife-hood and renunciation, which ask a woman to be devoted to her husband while striving for detached liberation. By renouncing at the hand of her husband, the Jina Neminath, the Jain sati Rajul is simultaneously a devoted wife and a nun, presenting Jains with a possible resolution through sati discourse. Devotional tellings of the story of Nemi and Rajul elaborate on Rajul's love of Nemi and on the iconic representations of her auspicious wifehood while Jain visual and ritual cultures use western Indian sati discourse to represent Rajul as an eternally auspicious wife.