2019

Tourism and Environmental Challenges in the Central Himalayas
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. | Thursday, April 4, 2019 | 203 Becker Communications Building
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2018

Punctuated Violence: Caring Karna and the Dynamics of Translocal Householding in India
3-4:30 p.m. | Friday, March 1 | UCC 1117 (International Commons)
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Talk by Paul Greenough focused on the life of immigrant scholar Sudhindra Bose and his observations on Midwest America during his time in Iowa City from 1904-1946
4-6 p.m. | Thursday, November 8 | UCC 1117
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Infants, Mothers, and Water
4:30-6 p.m. | Thursday, September 13 | UCC 2390 (Executive Boardroom)
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2017

An evening of Kabir songs by the award-winning Prahlad Singh Tipanya group
Wednesday, April 5 | 7:30 p.m. | Concert Hall, Voxman Music Building

Aaron Sinift lecture - Other Imaginings; Artists Collaborating with Gandhi Ashrams
South Asian Studies Program Seminar Series - Spring 2017
February 14 | 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. | E125 VAB
Aaron Sinift collaborates closely with Gandhian activists in India to create editions which bridge the worlds of contemporary art & Gandhi Ashrams of Northern India. His project, 5 Year Plan, is a Fluxus inspired experiment in Gandhian economics, which combines book arts, international artists and social activism to create a hybrid performance which serves all participants. Since 2009, what started rather naively has deepened into a fascinating relationship with Gandhi's legacy and with the people who live Gandhi's message of service.

2016

Artist Lecture by Seema Srivastava​
Thursday, March 24 at 7:30 p.m. in Room 116, Art Building West
Seema Srivastava is an art historian, cultural theorist, teacher, and a designer. She has been passionately involved with the world of art for more than two decades.
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2015

Monday, Feb 23 from 4:30-6:00 p.m. in 1117 UCC
The past and present of close-kin marriage in Tamilnadu
​Isabelle Clark-Decès, cultural anthropologist and Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University

Monday, Feb 16 from 4:30-6:00 p.m. in 1117 UCC
Whither the Silk Road? The View from Early Modern India
Scott Levi, Associate Professor of History at Ohio State University, specialist in the history of Islamic Central Asia

Monday, March 2 from 4:30-6:00 p.m. in 1117 UCC
"Pick a side, we're at war!": Navigating the Expectations of the Academy and the Hindu Community
Jeffrey D. Long, professor of Religion and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown College

Friday, March 6 at 4:00 p.m. in 1117 UCC
The Aspectual System of Middle Indic
Ashwini Deo, Associate Professor of Linguistics at Yale University

Sunday, March 8 from 5:00-7:00 p.m. at the Englert Theatre
​Exotic Voice of India- a Carnatic music concert

Monday, April 13 at 4:30 p.m. in 1117 UCC
Performative Suspension: The Limits of Liminality
David Mason, Associate Professor, Chair of Theater, Director of Asian Studies at Rhodes College

Thursday, October 29 at 5:00 p.m. in 2390 UCC (Executive Boardroom)
Coffee, Frogs, and Workers: Conservation in India during the Anthropocene
Paul Robbins, professor and director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Thursday, November 19 at 4:30 p.m. in 1117 UCC
Investigating Smallpox in Nepal
Dr. Susan Heydon, Senior Lecturer in Social Pharmacy at the School of Pharmacy, University of Otago, New Zealand

2014

Monday, Feb. 24 from 4:00-5:30 p.m. in 1117 UCC
Consuming Gold: Reframing Gender, Property and Aesthetics in Contemporary India
Nilika Mehrotra, Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at Jawaharlal Nehru University and
Fulbright Sr. Research Fellow at UC-Berkeley

Sunday, March 2 – 8:30 at Public Space One in Wesley Foundation, 120 N. Dubuque St.
Lessons in Drag
Kareem Khubchandani
Lessons in Drag explores South Asian popular culture (literature, film, performance) through anecdote, monologues, research interviews, stand-up comedy, and dance. The show raises issues of gender discipline, diasporic nostalgia, film reception, racialization and racism.

Monday, March 3 from 4:00-5:30 p.m. in 1117 UCC
United Against 377? The Politics of Resistance to India’s Sodomy Law – Panel Discussion
Aniruddha Dutta, Assistant Professor of GWSS/Asian and Slavic Language & Literature (UI)
Kareem Khubchandani, Doctoral Candidate in Performance Studies at Northwestern University
Elakshi Kumar, Doctoral Candidate in GWSS at U of Minnesota

Monday, March 10 from 4:00-5:30 p.m. in 1117 UCC
Experiments with Truth: The Contemporary Hindi Historical Film
Corey Creekmur, Associate Professor of English, Cinema & Comparative Lit, and GWSS (UI)

Monday, March 31 from 4:00-5:30 p.m. in 1117 UCC
Gurus and Overlapping Sovereignties: Informal Justice and Local Development in Rural Karnataka
Aya Ikegame, Research Associate in Department of Politics and International Studies and Faculty of
Social Sciences at The Open University, UK

Monday, April 7 from 4:00-5:30 p.m. in 1117 UCC
Recalling Jewish Calcutta : Author and Archivist
Jael Silliman, Feminist Scholar, Activist and Novelist, Kolkata

Thursday, April 10 from 4:00-5:30 p.m. 2390 UCC
The Positive Deviance Approach to Solving Complex Social Problems: Implications for South Asia
Arvind Singhal, Marston Endowed Professor at U of Texas at El Paso

Monday, April 21
Saree Conversations (several related events)
Lecture - 4:00-5:30 p.m. in 1117 UCC
Performance - 5:00-5:30 p.m. in 1117 UCC
Reception - 5:30-6:30 p.m. in 1117 UCC
Community event with draping presentation - 6:30-8:30 p.m. in 2780 UCC

Monday, April 28 from 4:00-5:30 p.m. in 1117 UCC
Art, literature and translation: a Publisher Explains Why Beautiful Books Continue to Emerge from Kolkata
Naveen Kishore, Editor-Publisher with Seagull Books, Kolkatha

Rebooting Hindu Hymns
Presented by: Hamsa Stainton, assistant professor of Indian religions at University of Kansas
Date: Monday, Sept. 15, 2014
Time: 4:30-6:00 p.m.
Location: University Capitol Centre, Room 1117

Indian Printmaking: Rediscovery, Revolution and Renewal
Presented by: Waswo X Waswo, painter and photographer
Date: Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Art Building West

"In God's Land"
Film screening and conversation with director Pankaj Rishi Kumar
Date: Monday, Oct. 6
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Room 2390, University Capitol Centre

The Urban World: A Case Study in Slum Relocation
Video followed by talk "Ahmedabad: The Past, Present and Future of 'Shock City'"
Presented by: Howard Spodek, Temple University
Date: Monday, Oct. 13
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: UCC 2390

The Pathology of Texts: S.M. Katre & Indology
Presented by: Pranav Prakash
Date: Monday, Nov. 17
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Location: UCC 1117
Pranav Prakash is a UI graduate student in Religious Studies. He recently returned from more than a year and a half in Tehran, where he completed an M.A. program in Classical Persian literature. He will speak about the politics of manuscript collections there, and compare it with the seminal stages of similar work he is undertaking in India.

Zoroastrian healing traditions of western India
Presented by: Daniel Sheffield, Princeton University
Date: Monday, Dec. 1
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Location: UCC 2390

2013

UI alum Aaron Sinift, creator of the 5 Year Plan
Thursday, February 28, 2013
5-6:30 p.m.
1117 University Capitol Centre
Aaron Sinift studied painting, printmaking, and South Asian studies at the University of Iowa (95'), and received an MFA in painting at Boston University (02'). He produced the 5 Year Plan in collaboration with Gandhi Ashram spinning and weaving collectives in India and 26 artists from 7 countries. This event is sponsored by the Center for the Book, the School of Art and Art History in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the South Asian Studies Program in International Programs.

UICB Brownell Lecture on the History of the Book
Mini Symposium on Islamic Papermaking and Calligraphy
Fri, March 8, 2013
2:30-5:30 p.m.
Art Building West, Auditorium Room 240

Documentary Activism in India: A Conversation with Anand Patwardhan
Tuesday, March 12
5-7 p.m.
2390 University Capitol Centre
Along with screening clips from a number of his films, Patwardhan will discuss his approach to cinema as political activism and will answer questions from faculty who regularly use his films in teaching, as well as from the general audience. Chai and Indian snacks will be served.

Racialized transnationalism in the 21st century: Lessons from the experiences of South Asian Americans
Friday, April 12
11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
1117 University Capitol Centre
Bandana Purkayastha, professor of sociology and Asian American studies at the University of Connecticut, has published several books, articles, and chapters on racism, gendering, and class formation, as these structures affect highly-educated, racial and religious minority immigrants and their children.

World music concert
Friday, April 26. 2013
4-6 p.m.
1117 University Capitol Centre
Lakha Khan of the desert village of Raneri, Jodhpur District, in Rajasthan, India, is an acclaimed maestro of the folk sarangi, an upright bowed lute known for its soul-stirring sound. He belongs to the Manganiyar community, which is both Hindu and Muslim in practice, and has for centuries excelled in Rajasthani traditional and Sufi mystical music, bridging the gap between classical and folk. Lakha sings in Hindi, Sindhi, Marwari, and Punjabi, and will be accompanied by his son, Dane Khan, on dholak (a double-headed drum). A translator will interpret the lyrics.

“So How Many Languages Are Hindi-Urdu Anyway?"
Friday, May 3, 2013
4 p.m.
University Capitol Centre, Room 2520B
For almost two centuries, scholars have tried to clarify the relations between two language varieties commonly referred to as “Hindi” and “Urdu,” sometimes lumped together under the hyphenated rubric of “Hindi-Urdu.” This talk will describe the complex of historical, cultural, and political factors that have fed this debate and how these factors have been reflected in grammars, dictionaries, pedagogical materials, and linguistic studies. It will also explore the real-world consequences of these terminological issues, whether in second-language classrooms or in formulating language policies for modern nation states.

Bhairav se Bhairavi
Date: Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013
Time: 7-10 p.m. (seating begins at 6:30 p.m.)
Location: University Capitol Centre Recital Hall
Come enjoy a night of North Indian Classical music when Niche Entertainment presents a free concert, “Bhairav se Bhairavi.” Seven brilliant artists from India will be in Iowa City to present Sangeet music through a scripted English narration that is both educational and entertaining. Sangeet transcends beyond the mundane levels of existence to joy, happiness, bliss, and an almost divine meditative state. It is considered as one of the most profound methods for exploring the mind. The program will be an exposition of classical Indian musical tradition based on the eternal cyclical clock of day and night. It commences with raga Bhairav, a morning raga, and concludes with Bhairavi, typically sung at the dawn.

"Trafficked Survivors and Commoditization of Women’s Bodies: A Study in Andhra Pradesh and Manipur, North East India" Thursday, September 5, 4:30-6:00 PM in 302 SH
Presented by: Ajailiu Niumai, Associate Professor of Sociology, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy and Centre for Women's Studies, Hyderabad Central University (HCU)

"The Envelope of Global Trade: The Intellectual History and Political Economy of Jute in the Bengal Delta, the 1850s to the 1930s.”
Thursday, Sept. 12, 4:30-6:00 PM in 1117 UCC
Presented by: Tariq Ali, Assistant Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA)

Bhairav se Bhairavi Musical Program
Tuesday, Sept. 17, 7:00-10:00 PM in UCC Recital Hall
Offered by the UI School of Music with co-sponsorship from the India Association of Iowa City Area (IAICA) and Friends of India Association

"Indian Citizenship: A Century of Disagreement"
Friday, Sept. 20, 11:30-1:00 PM in UCC 2390
Presented by: Niraja Gopal Jayal, Professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University (India)

“Regarding India, Conversations with Artists: Dinesh Khanna, V.Ramesh, Wawo X Waswo”
Thursday, October 3, 5:30-7:00 in ABW 240
Presented by: Kathryn Myers, Professor of Art at University of Connecticut

“The Indian Novel as an Agent of History”
Tuesday, October 22, 5:00-6:30 PM in 302 SH
Presented by: Chandrahas Choudhury, Novelist, New Delhi
Co-sponsored by the International Writing Program

"State of Injustice: The Indian State and Poverty"
Wednesday, Nov. 6, 5:00-6:30 in 2390 UCC
Presented by: John Harriss, Professor of International Studies, Simon Fraser University (Canada)
Co-sponsored by the Public Policy Center and UI College of Law Center for Int'l Finance & Development

“Film Songs about Film Songs: Cultural Memory, Antakshari and ‘Hindustani Sanskriti’”
Monday, Nov. 18, 5:00-6:30 in 2390 UCC
Presented by: Gregory Booth, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Univ. of Auckland (New Zealand)
Co-sponsored by the UI School of Music

India Through Film
Film screenings: 6:30 – 9:30 p.m. Tuesdays
109 English-Philosophy Bldg (EPB)
All screenings are free and open to the public.
Please note, however, that they are for a course. If you attend, please come on time, turn off all electronic devices, and do not converse with friends or otherwise disturb the screening. There will be a five-minute break at roughly midpoint of most films.

2012

“Chai Why? The Making of the Indian ‘National Drink’”
Date: Thursday, Feb. 23
Time: 4 p.m.
Location: 1117 UCC
Presented by: Philip Lutgendorf, professor of Hindi and Modern Indian Studies in the Department of Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures in CLAS
This presentation offers a report on my research into the promotion and popularization of tea-drinking in 20th century India. It is inspired in part by recent ethno-historical work on everyday culinary commodities, by anthropological interest in the “social life of things,” and by my own recognition of the remarkable role that tea, modified to Indian taste, has come to play in diet, social intercourse, and public culture in a relatively short span of time. My research focuses on the mass popularization of indigenized “chai” through changes in marketing, manufacturing, and consumption, and in eating habits, urban space, and social networks, and involves both archival and field research. In my talk, I will emphasize the role played by advertising images in transmitting the “tea habit” to Indians, both prior to and following Independence in 1947.

“Separating the Folk Sound from the Folk Body: Schizophonia in the Music Industry of the Garhwal Himalayas”
Presented by: Stefan Fiol, Assistant Professor of Music, University of Cincinnati
Date: Thursday, April 5, 2012,
Time: 4 p.m.
Location: 1117 University Capitol Centre
Over the past several decades vernacular music industries in many parts of South Asia have utilized artistic traditions originating in Dalit communities to create marketable commodities of “folk culture.” Why do music industries that celebrate and seek to raise the profile of “folk arts” (lok sangeet) also routinely neglect and exploit regional “folk artists” (lok kalakar)? By attending to the experiences of musicians from three hereditary caste communities in the Garhwal Himalayas—Baddi, Bajgi, and Jagariya—and by interrogating the body politics of a number of mass-mediated representations, this talk will interrogate the idea that new media and vernacular markets have had a democratizing influence on musical practice. Instead, I demonstrate that entrenched and widely-shared conceptions about caste-based status, function, musical style, and mobility continue to influence who is allowed to participate in regional studio recordings, and how they are ultimately represented on video and cassette albums.

“Urban Democratization Movements in India: Vernacular Publics, Legitimacy, News Media, and Alternate Politics”
Date: Tuesday, April 10
Time: 5 p.m.
Location: 302 Schaeffer Hall
Presented by: Dr. Anup Kumar, Assistant Professor of Journalism, School of Communication, Cleveland State University
This new consciousness among vernacular publics highlights corruption at all levels of government and the corporate world, while still resisting the hegemonic discourse of economic growth. The talk looks at the recent populist social mobilization (jan andolans) against corruption and its possible grievance mechanism (Jan Lokpal Movement). It analyzes how an urban democratization movement features a competitive struggle among vernacular publics, and how the state and news media struggle over the legitimacy of alternate politics and vernacular public space, as it moves beyond electoral politics but still calls for democratization and transparency in governance.

Independent filmmaker Yousuf Saeed
“Four Short Documentaries on Popular Islam in India” screening + discussion
Date: Wednesday, Oct. 3
Time: 8 p.m.
Location: E105 AJB (Adler Journalism and Mass Communication Building)

"The Popular Soundscape and Visual Culture of a Sufi Shrine: Hazrat Nizamuddin, Delhi" lecture
Date: Thursday, Oct. 4
Time: 5 p.m.
Location: 1117 University Capitol Centre

“From Snakes' Blood to Sewage: Mythology and Ecology of a Minor River in Rajasthan”
Presented by: Ann Grodzins Gold, Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Professor of Anthropology at Syracuse University
Date: Thursday, Oct. 25
Time: 4:00-5:30 p.m.
Location: 2390 University Capitol Centre (the Executive Board Room)

How to Read the Qur’an
Presented by: Carl W. Ernst
Date: Thursday, Nov. 1
Time: 5-7 p.m.
Location: E105 AJB

"Translating a Tradition"
Presented by: Mani Rao, a poet, twice as an IWP fellow from India, are currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Duke University
When: Thursday, Nov. 15, from 4-5:30 p.m.
Where: 1117 UCC

“Law, Medical Knowledge and Intelligibility: Divining the Course of India’s New Patent Regime for Ayurveda and Biomedicine”
Presented by: Murphy Halliburton, Professor of Anthropology, Queens College, New York
When: Thursday, Nov. 29, 4-5:30 p.m.
Where: 1117 UCC

2011

Reading by Kiran Nagarkar
When: Friday, February 25, 2011, at 3 p.m.
Where: Gilmore Hall, 3rd Floor Atrium
Kiran Nagarkar, one of India’s best known novelists and former participant in the University of Iowa’s International Writer’s Program (IWP), will be reading from his new novel in progress, a continuation of an earlier book titled Ravan and Eddie about two boys, one Christian and one Hindu, living in the same apartment building in Bombay in the 1950s. In 2001 Nagarkar won India’s prestigious Sahitya Akademi award (comparable to America’s Pulitzer Prize or the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction) for his 1997 historical novel Cuckold, which describes the life and tumultuous times of the great poet Mirabai in early sixteenth century India. A discussion of the implications Nagarkar’s work will follow his reading. The event, sponsored by the South Asian Studies Program, the Department of Religious Studies and UI International Programs, is free and open to the public.

Challenges to Indian Multilingualism
When: Thursday, March 24, 2011, at 4 p.m.
Where: 1117 University Capitol Centre
Presented by: Prof. E. Annamalai (University of Chicago)
India is noted by sociolinguists for its stable multilingualism from a demographic standpoint, but it is undergoing a transformation with regard to political relationships between the languages within multilingualism. This transformation comes from many factors: the opening up of economic opportunities, embracing modernity that includes dislocation to urban areas and uprooting from traditional social mores, formation of linguistic states contributing to the emergence of dominant languages within states, emergence of political pluralism which allows the speakers of minority languages to question the role of regional languages in their lives, and the demand for English to have a commanding place in education, employment and other sectors. The talk will elaborate on the changing linguistic scene in India, and attempt to theorize this change.
Prof. Annamalai received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Chicago. He was Deputy Director and then Director of the Central Institute for Indian Languages in Mysore, where he directed the study of indigenous languages and their use in education. As Director he was involved in formulating language policy and implementing the policies of the Government of India. Subsequently he has been a visiting scholar at universities in Japan, Europe and Australia. He was a visiting professor for five years at Yale University, and is now visiting professor at the University of Chicago. His research interests include grammatical descriptions as well as political and social dimensions of Indian languages, with special reference to Tamil. He has studied language contact and its linguistic consequences, and the application of linguistics in the field of language teaching and dictionary making. His most recent book, written with Ron Asher, is Social Dimensions of Modern Tamil (2011).

“Drunkards Beware!: Temperance and Nationalist Politics in India in the 1930’s”
When: Thursday March 31, 2011, at 4 p.m.
Where: 468 Phillips Hall
Presented by: Eric Colvard, a doctoral candidate in history
Eric Colvard’s dissertation traces the evolution of the notion that Indians have historically eschewed drink. In the 1880’s, mass movements emerged in the Bombay Presidency, agitating for greater access to alcohol. In the 1920’s, increasingly radical Indian nationalists consciously invoked the image of the Abstemious Indian as a symbol of national purity in a context of increasing colonial contamination. By the late 1930’s, the height of the Indian freedom struggle, nationalists sought to impose on the population of India, many of them drinkers, a new standard for moral behavior based on an imagined past. As nationalists took the levers of state power from their colonial predecessors, the Abstemious Indian, once a rhetorical figure deployed in the service of the global temperance movement and nationalist politics, inspired the inclusion of prohibition as state policy in the Constitution of Free India.

“Economic Policies and Public Finance in Sri Lanka: Did War Expenditure Matter?”
When: Thursday, April 14, 2011, at 4 p.m.
Where: 1117 UCC
Presented by: Hennadige N. Thenuwara (adjunct assistant professor in economics at The University of Iowa)
Hennadige N. Thenuwara is an adjunct assistant professor of economics at The University of Iowa. Prior to visiting Iowa, he was the Assistant Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. He completed doctorate in economics at the Tippie Business College in 1997. Thenuwara has a wide range of experience in design of economic policy. In Sri Lanka he was closely associated with the design of monetary and exchange rate policy, fiscal policy, debt policy and trade policy. He has also served as the Director of Economic Research of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, and the Head of the Debt Office. He has regularly advised Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Trade. He also has represented Sri Lanka at the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, World bank, World Trade Organization and several neighboring countries on bilateral trade issues. His research interests are in the fields of monetary economics, international trade, and economic growth. He published the book ‘Money, Inflation and Economic Growth’ in 2010.

“Some (Not so) Lost Aquatic Traditions: Goans Going Fishing in the Indian Ocean”
Presented by: Anthropologist Pamila Gupta When: Friday, Nov. 11, from 4:00-5:30 p.m.
Where: 302 Schaeffer Hall.
Gupta will discuss how rituals enhance community and diasporic ties between Portugal, Mozambique, and Goa, India. She will focus on the role rituals play in re-creating sensual and bodily experiences and memories, and in representing notions of Goan popular culture, all to be passed onto subsequent generations of Goan Mozambicans. Gupta is a senior researcher based at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is currently a visiting professor in the Department of Anthropology at the New School for Social Research in New York.

“Transforming Social Realities into Research Questions: Experiences of Working with Women in Forest Dependent Communities in the Western Ghats”
Date: Sept. 8, 2011
Time: 4 p.m.
Location: 315 Phillips Hall
Presenter: Dr. Indira Ramarao, Professor of Sociology, Director of the International Centre, University of Mysore, India; visiting Fulbright lecturer in Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies
This event is sponsored by the South Asian Studies Program within UI International Programs and the UI Department of Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Indian playwright and director Gowri Ramnarayan
Date: Tuesday, Sept. 19 and Wednesday, Sept. 20
Time: 5 p.m.
Location: Theatre B, Theatre Building
Ramnarayan has written and directed four plays in English that have been staged all over India. In addition to playwriting, Ramnarayan has scripted and directed two theatre productions in Tamil and translated Marathi plays and Tamil short stories. She has authored several children’s books, served as a jury member at various international film festivals, and she is a feature writer of music, cinema, theatre and literature with the nationwide English daily “The Hindu” in India.
This event is sponsored by the Department of Theatre Arts in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the South Asian Studies Programs within UI International Programs.

“New Culture and New Welfare in South Asia: the Arts in India”
October 6-8, 2011
A public conference and short course (287:150:SCM) organized by the South Asian Studies Program (SASP) with support from an International Programs Major Project grant, an Undergraduate Studies International and Foreign Language grant from the US Department of Education and the South Asian Studies Program Anathamurthy funds. A public conference and short course (287:150:SCM) organized by the South Asian Studies Program (SASP) with support from an International Programs Major Project grant, an Undergraduate Studies International and Foreign Language grant from the US Department of Education and the South Asian Studies Program Anathamurthy funds.

South Asian Studies Program lecture, presented by Ken Botnick
Date: Thursday Oct. 27, 2011
Time: 4 p.m.
Location: University Capitol Center, Room 2390
Topic: "The Aesthetics of Accommodation: Signs, Streets, and Democratic Spaces in Urban India"
Ken Botnick has been printing and publishing works in limited edition for over 25 years, first as co-proprietor of Red Ozier Press in New York, and today under the imprint emdash in St Louis. His work is found in rare book collections around the world, including The Getty Center for Humanities, The Library of Congress, The Newberry Library, the Yale Arts of the Book Collection, libraries at Smith, Harvard, Wellesley and notable private collections. Botnick’s design work has been recognized by the American Institute of Graphic Arts for its “50 Books/50 Covers” exhibit ( 2008), and by the American Association of University Presses. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship in 2006 to support his residency at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India, and at other leading Indian design institutes. His two primary research areas are in visual perception and, in India, the role of craft practice as a component of design thinking. He is Professor of Art at Washington University in St Louis where he directs the Kranzberg Book Studio.

2010

"My bhakti is my power": Gender, Power, and the Performance of Devotional Asceticism in Rajasthan

Date: Thursday, February 18, 2010
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 1117 UCC
Presenter: Antoinette DeNapoli, Visiting Assistant Professor of Asian Religions, Grinnell College

Based on ethnographic research that brings together perspectives from
religious studies, gender studies, and performance studies, DeNapoli's work examines how female Shaiva initiates create a gendered, vernacular tradition of devotional asceticism that reconfigures orthodox, Brahmanical, and male-oriented concepts and practices. She will illustrate this with slides from her recent fieldwork.

"Corporal Punishment: Violence, Obedience, and Gender in New Delhi Schools"

Date: Thursday, February 25, 2010
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 1117 University Capitol Center
Presenter: Lavanya Murali Proctor; PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology

Based on recent dissertation research conducted in three schools in New
Delhi, this presentation examines why corporal punishment occurs, how it is justified, and how gender is implicated in it. Proctor's findings raise the question of what implications such patterns of violence have on gender
relations in the broader context of patriarchy and gender oppression in India.

"India: Exploring an Emerging Market"

Dates: Monday, April 5 - Thursday, April 8, 2010

During the week of April 5th, 2010, the University of Iowa Center for International Finance & Development (UICIFD), along with other sponsors, will present the following events focusing on India, a dynamic emerging economy.

"Short-term Workshop on Ritual, Culture, and the Environment in South Asia"

Dates: Thursday, April 15 - Saturday, April 17, 2010
During the 2½ day workshop, seven experts on India, including two UI faculty members, will explore how the study of ritual is relevant in contemporary India. All are exciting and responsive speakers who welcome students’ questions and opinions. Undergraduates interested in Indian history, religion, culture, or environmental studies are particularly invited to participate, but students in any discipline and degree program are welcome. The workshop can be found on ISIS under 039:198: (section 002), “Topics in Asian Studies: Ritual, Culture, and the Environment in India.” Registration will remain open through April 14. To receive academic credit, registrants must attend all sessions, participate in discussions and submit a two-page reflection paper by April 23. Ample time will be given for discussion and student participation, and students will be able to interact with the speakers throughout the event. Funding for the workshop is from the US Department of Education and from International Programs. All sessions, except for those scheduled for Saturday afternoon (UCC 1100), will take place in the International Commons room 1117, located in the University Capitol Center (located in the Old Capitol Mall). They will commence at 4:00 pm on Thursday April 15, and will continue all day Friday and Saturday April 17 April 16 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. Light breakfast snacks will be served from 8:30-9:00 am on the 16th and 17th and periodically throughout the day. This workshop promises to be an intensive learning opportunity.

"Rang de Basanti (The Color of Sacrifice)"

Date: Monday, April 26, 2010
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: W151 PBAB
Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

"Speaking in Many Voices: How India's Multivocality Shapes Its Foreign Policy"

Date: Thursday, April 29, 2010
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 1117 UCC
Presenter: Matthew Rudolph; Government Department, Georgetown University

Abstract: As India’s relative power in the world grows, understanding and predicting its future actions in global affairs is much on the mind of merchants, financiers, and development professionals the world over, just as it is much on the minds of policy makers from Washington to Beijing. India is unusual among global powers because its history, culture and plural society give it the ability to speak in many voices. How does this “multivocality” work in global politics? What does it mean for Indian foreign policy?

"Financial Change and Varieties of Asian Capitalism: The Politics of Chinese and Indian Securities Finance Compared"

Date: Friday, April 30, 2010
Time: 12:00 p.m.
Location: 1117 UCC
Presenter: Matthew Rudolph; Government Department, Georgetown University

Abstract: This paper compares the development of securities finance (stocks and bonds) in India and China during the explosive years of global financial change in the 1990s. I evaluate some simple inferences about the causes of variation in these two countries’ patterns of financial change with particular reference to the politics of securities finance. The institutional development of securities finance in the 1990s shaped the choices available to these countries’ leaders regarding the varieties of capitalism and federalism that are today taking shape in China and India.
The paper draws on a larger study of the politics of an increasingly common global trend – the shift toward securities finance. It is a comparative and international political economy study of "securitization". Here “securitization” refers not to the now well-known sale of tradable claims on sub-prime US housing mortgages, but instead, to the long-term structural shift from credit-based finance (banking) to securities-based finance (stocks and bonds) – using China and India as examples of developmental states in late industrialization. I propose a necessary revision to Gerschenkron’s thesis on finance and state power in late industrialization, accounting for the growing role of securities finance.
Matthew C. J. Rudolph holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Department of Government at Cornell University (2006). He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor in the Government Department at Georgetown University, and has also been a lecturer in Politics at the University of California (Santa Cruz) and a post-doctoral associate at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. Under fellowships from the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Mellon Foundation, and the Institute of Current World Affairs, he has carried out extensive research in both South Asia and China on comparative political economy, using a qualitative approach that emphasizes political institutions, political elites, and international-based dynamics.

"Rare Earths: Travancore, the Cold War, and the Origins of National Security in India"

Date: Thursday, May 6, 2010
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 315 Phillips Hall
Presenter: Itty Abraham; Marlene and Morton Meyerson Centennial Chair, Director, South Asia Institute, Associate Professor, Depts. of Government and Asian Studies, University of Texas at Austin

Travancore, a small princely state in South India that resisted joining the Indian Union in 1947, happened to possess the world's largest stock of a rare, radioactive element; hence its political fate became entangled with larger geopolitical strategies and rivalries. Itty Abraham served as program director for South and Southeast Asia and Global Security and Cooperation at the Social Science Research Council in New York from 1992-2005. His publications include The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb (1998), three edited volumes, and numerous essays and articles on international relations, science and technology studies, and postcolonial theory.

Presenter: Nupur Barua - Amaltas Consulting, New Delhi, India
Topic: “HIV/AIDS in India: Current realities and emerging challenges”
When: Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2010 at 4:30 p.m.
Where: W128 Chemistry Building

Presenter: Nupur Barua - Amaltas Consulting, New Delhi, India
Topic:“'It is better to die than to let people know that you have the curse': AIDS-related stigma and treatment seeking behavior among the urban poor in Delhi, India”
When: Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2010 at 4:30 p.m.
Where: W128 Chemistry Building

Presenter: Chandrika Kaul - University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland
Topic: "Communications and the Indian Empire: The British Media and Imperial Control"
When: Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010 at 4:00 p.m.
Where: 1117 University Capitol Centre

Presenter: R. Balasubramaniam, MD - Founder-member, Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement, Saragur, India
Topic: “The Hospital in the Jungle: The Vindication of Human Rights for a South Indian Adibasi Community”
When: Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 at 4:00 p.m.
Where: 1117 University Capitol Centre

Presenter: Shahnaz Khan - Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada
Topic:“Native Informing and the Muslim Woman”
When: Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010 at 4:00 p.m.
Where: 1117 University Capitol Centre

Presenter: Jael Silliman - Ford Foundation (ret.), Kolkata, India
Topic:"Making Women Safe in India: Innovative Campaigns, Diverse Audiences and New Initiatives"
When: Thursday, Nov. 11, 2010 at 4:00 p.m.
Where: 2520D University Capitol Centre

Presenter: Kathleen O'Reilly - Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas
Topic:"Toward a Political Ecology of Sanitation in Rural India"
When: Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010 at 4:00 p.m.
Where: 315 Phillips Hall

Presenter: Hans Henrich Hock - University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Topic:“Appropriating the Past: Language, Archaeology and Ideology in South Asia and the Diaspora”
When: Friday, Nov. 19, 2010 at 4:00 p.m.
Where: 315 Phillips Hall

Workshop in Natural Disasters and Public Memory in South Asia Oct. 7-9
(152:125: SCA Topics In Global Health)
October 7-9, 2010
International Programs Commons room 1117 (University Capitol Centre)
University of Iowa
This workshop focuses on a particular phenomenon that occurs in the unfolding of natural disasters in the present: the opening of a new or blank space for representation and narrative after a disaster. Briefly, this is the space arising between those who directly bear the pain of great losses (i.e. the victims or affectees) and the outsiders who opt to spring forward to relieve, reverse, report, interpret and sometimes exploit the punishing blows of a disaster. These outsiders (journalists, researchers, bureaucrats, political representatives and others) can interpose or frame—whether by accident or by design and simply by virtue of their greater resources and power— their own versions of events. Not surprisingly these versions can become the enduring and most widely circulated public memory of events, even to the extent of infiltrating and altering the affectees’ own memories.

2009

"Being Tamil in a South African Way: The Pain of Racism in the Patient Narratives of a 'Coolie Doctor'"
Date: Thursday, February 19
Time: 3:30 p.m.
Location: IP Commons, UCC 1117
Presenter: Antoinette Burton

“Ramayana Remix: Two Hindi Filmsong Sequences as Epic Commentary”
Date: Thursday, March 5
Time: 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: 315 Philips Hall
Presenter: Philip Lutgendorf, Asian Languages and Literature, University of Iowa

“Vedanta Meets Heavy Metal: The Image of India in the Diasporic Music of Rudra"
Date: Thursday, April 2
Time: 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: 315 Philips Hall
Presenter: Sangeet Kumar, Communication Studies, University of Iowa

Kabir Festival
Dates: Thursday, April 16- Friday, April 17
Events will include a concert by celebrated Kabir singers Prahlad Singh Tipaniya and Party, from Madhya Pradesh. A member of India’s Dalit community, Tipaniya has gained wide recognition as an exponent of Kabir’s music and message and has received the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi award for his achievements. The musicians will be accompanied by filmmaker Shabnam Virmani and Professor Linda Hess of Stanford University, a scholar and translator of Kabir. There will be a lecture-reading by Professor Hess and a screening of two films by Virmani.

Had-Anhad:“Bound-Unbound”: Journeys with Ram and Kabir
Date: Thursday, April 16
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Location: 3505 Seamans Center

Reading and conversation with Linda Hess
Date: Friday, April 17
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Prairie Lights Bookstore

Concert by Prahlad Singh Tipaniya and Party
Date: Friday, April 17
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Location: Trinity Episcopal Church (College and Gilbert Streets)

"Writing India Writing English"
Date: Thursday, April 23
Time: 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: IP Commons
Presenter: GJV Prasad, English, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

"A Tale of Two Sisters: The Impact of Beauty on the Lives of Karnataka Villagers"
Date: Thursday, April 30
Time: 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: 315 Phillips Hall
Presenter: Helen Ullrich, Clinical Psychiatry, Tulane University School of Medicine

"The Color of Gender: On Substance, Sex-Determination, and Anatomical Difference in the Caraka and Sushruta-samhitas of Ayurvedic Medicine"
Date: Friday, September 11
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 315 Phillips Hall
Speaker: Professor Martha Selby, Department of Asian Studies, University of Texas, Austin.
Selby is a distinguished scholar and translator who returns to the University of Iowa as a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) Alumni Fellow and also the first speaker in the South Asian Studies Program (SASP) fall seminar series, sponsored by International Programs. Professor Selby was born and raised in Nevada, Iowa and graduated from the University of Iowa with her BA in Asian Studies in 1982. She did her graduate work at the University of Chicago, specializing in the literature of South Indian languages and in the neglected erotic poetry of several classic Indic languages. In her Sept. 11 talk, Selby will discuss the semiotics of gender in the contexts of the plural medical worlds of classical South Asia, blending philology, semiotics, and feminist criticism, along with medical history.

"The Poetics of Recognition in Hindi Cinema"
Date: Thursday, November 5
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 1117 UCC
Presenter: Richard Allen, New York University (Film Studies)

"Jodhaa Akbar"
Date: Monday, November 9
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: 101 Becker Communication Studies Building
Film by: Ashutosh Gowariker, 2008

"I Used to Call Myself 'Elvis': The Politics of Experience in Indian Call Centers"
Date: Thursday, November 19
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 1117 UCC
Presenter: Aimee Carrillo Rowe, University of Iowa Associate Professor of Rhetoric, POROI (Project on the Rhetoric of Inquiry), and Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies

Indian call center agents become estranged from their immediate surroundings as they stretch their imaginations and identities to meet American customers in the virtual space of the telephone call. Drawing on interviews with fifty call center workers, this presentation considers the implications of the particular demands of their transnational labor for agents¹ sense of embodied being.

"Permanent Resettlement Sites in Post-Tsunami South India: A Case of 'Build Back Better' or Tabula Rasa Spoiled?"
Date: Thursday, December 3
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 1117 UCC
Presenter: Luke Juran, University of Iowa (Geography)
The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami devastated mainland India, displacing close to one million persons and damaging or destroying more than 100,000 homes. The impacts set in place the most extensive reconstruction project in India's history. This presentation focuses on water and sanitation infrastructure in housing reconstruction and provides field-based data to assess the extent to which projects lived up to their stated goals.

Film Schedule

"Rang De Basanti (The Color of Sacrifice)"
Date: Monday, November 16
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: 101 Becker Communication Studies Building
Film by: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, 2006

"Dev D."
Date: Monday, November 30
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: 101 Becker Communication Studies Building
Film by: Anurag Kashyap, 2009

"Global Travel, Eroticism, & Love in O60s Bombay Cinema"
Date: Tuesday, December 1
Time: 2:30 - 3:45 p.m.
Location: E205 Adler Building
Film by: Ranjani Mazumdar Associate Professor of Cinema Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and independent filmmaker; author of Bombay Cinema, An Archive of the City (2007)

"Om Shanti Om"
Date: Monday, December 7
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: 101 Becker Communication Studies Building
Film by: Farah Khan, 2007

2008

Celebrating Urban Dharma: the Indra festival and the South Asian city
Date: Thursday, January 31
Time: 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: IP Commons
Presenter: Michael Baltutis, The University of Iowa

Languages and Cultures of Northern Pakistan
Date: February 7
Time: 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: IP Commons
Presenter: Elena Bashir, University of Chicago

Massive Waves and Modern Water: Post-tsunami Hydro-logics in Coastal Sri Lanka
Date: February 21
Time: 4:00 - 5:10 p.m.
Location: 1100 UCC (note change in location)
Presenter: Paul Greenough, University of Iowa

Re-thinking Historiography: Building Bridges between the Temple and the Classical in North Indian Music
Date: March 13
Time: 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: UCC-2520D, Conference Center on second floor of UCC
Presenter: Dr. Meilu Ho - Ethnomusicologist and Visiting Fellow
Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Iowa

Ambedkar and the Politics of Minority
Date: March 27
Time: 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: IP Commons
Presenter: Anupama Rao, Barnard College, Columbia University

Localizing News, Localizing Politics: The Case of the Amar Ujala and the Dainik Jagran
Date: April 10
Time: 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: IP Commons
Presenter: Anup Kumar, University of Iowa

Title TBA
Date: April 17
Time: 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: IP Commons
Presenter: Arvind Rajagopal, New York University

Faqirs in the Colony
Date: April 24, 2008
Time: 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: IP Commons
Presenter: Timothy Dobe, Grinnell College

South Asian Studies Seminar:
All seminars take place on Thursday afternoons unless otherwise indicated.

"(Un)Wanted Outsiders: The Debate over Whether to Exclude American and British Law Firms From a Thriving Capital Market"
Date: Thursday, September 18
Time: 4:00 -5:30 p.m.
Location: 1117 UCC, IP Commons
Presenter: Jayanth Krishnan, William Mitchell College of Law and UI College of Law

Moral Dilemmas of an Immoral Nation: Gender, Sexuality, and Journalism in the Film Page 3
Date: Wednesday, October 1
Time: 3:30 -4:30 p.m.
Location: E254 AJB
Presenter: Radhika Parameswaran, Indiana University, Bloomington
Venturing into the yet uncharted terrain of journalism’s popular representations in India, this presentation examines the award-winning Indian film Page 3’s searing commentary on the newly emerging commodity of soft (entertainment/lifestyle) news, a genre of print journalism that has emerged in the past decade in the wake of India’s rapid integration into the global economy. The presentation situates Madhur Bhandarkar’s Page 3 within the historical, social, and economic contexts of recent developments in Indian journalism, contexts that shape the potential meanings of the film as a cultural critique of commodity journalism. Located within the theoretical perspectives of postcolonial feminism and scholarship on images of journalism in Hollywood films, my analysis of the film focuses mainly on its chief protagonist Madhavi Sharma, a woman reporter who lives in Mumbai and works for the tabloid section of the well-regarded English-language newspaper Nation Today. I argue in the end that the film Page 3's patriarchal subtext undermines its progressive class critique of both upwardly mobile Indian readers’ consumer tastes and the Indian newspaper industry’s misguided economic priorities.

Color, Commerce, and Cosmetics: The Epidermal Politics of Beauty in Globalizing India
Date: Thursday, October 2
Time: 4:00 -5:30 p.m.
Location: 1117 UCC, IP Commons
Presenter: Radhika Parameswaran, Associate Professor, Indiana University, Bloomington Indiana
Kavitha Cardoza, WAMU 88.5 FM, American University, Washington, DC
The hero of the blockbuster Tamil film Sivaji, the Boss embarks on a quest to lighten his skin color when the woman he wants to marry taunts him about his dark skin tone. In the film Traffic Signal, Damber, a poor boy who sells newspapers on Mumbai’s streets, spends most of his earnings buying creams to alter his skin color. The heroine of the Indian television drama Saath Phere—Saloni Ka Safar endures skin color discrimination within the family and the marriage market. Globalizing India’s booming skin-lightening cosmetics industry operates in the midst of such recent public discourses that have tackled the epidermal politics of gender, beauty, selfhood, and success. Focusing on advertisements and television commercials for skin-lightening products, this presentation examines the rhetorical themes of bodily and personal transformation, modern and traditional science, and heterosexual romance that bolster the currency of light-skinned beauty in India. The presentation will situate advertising’s regulatory regimes of beauty within the sociology of colorism, the rapid economic growth in the fairness cosmetics sector in India, and discourses of resistance to the hegemony of light-skinned beauty.

“The Bio-materialisation of Medicine and the Asymmetrical Production of Pluralism”
Date: Thursday, October 23
Time: 4:00 -5:30 p.m.
Location: 1117 UCC, IP Commons
Presenter: Harish Naraindas, Jawaharlal Nehru University

"The Student Diploma Film and the Film and Television Institute of India"
Date: Thursday, November 6
Time: 4:00 -5:30 p.m.
Location: 1117 UCC, IP Commons
Presenter: Lalitha Gopalan, University of Texas at Austin
Lalitha Gopalan is an Associate Professor in the Radio- Television-Film Program at the University of Texas, Austin. She is the author of Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema (British Film Institute, 2002) and Bombay (BFI Modern Classics, 2005), and the editor of The Cinema of India in the 24 Frames series (Wallflower Press, 2008). Her research interests include national cinemas, international genre film, and experimental filmmaking practices. She serves on the editorial boards of Film Quarterly, Camera Obscura, and the BFI Film Classics series, and has served as a jury member at international film festivals, including the One Billion Eyes Indian Documentary Film Festival in Chennai in August 2008. Professor Gopalan is currently working on a book about the range of artisanal practices for producing short films in India.

Details TBA
Date: Thursday, November 13
Time: 4:00 -5:30 p.m.
Location: IP Commons, 1117 UCC
Presenter: Nasreen Munni Kabir, Independent Documentary Filmmaker and Author

"The Outer World of Shahrukh Khan"
Date: Wednesday, November 12
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: UCC 1117
Presenter: Nasreen Munni Kabir
Nasreen Munni Kabir is a prominent London-based writer, producer, and director whose many writings and documentary films (produced by her company Hyphen Films) have played a crucial role in the introduction of Indian popular cinema to Western audiences, and in the legitimation of Indian popular culture as an important heritage for diasporic South Asians. Well in advance of recent scholarly attention to ³Bollywood² (popular Hindi cinema), Nasreen Munni Kabir¹s tireless efforts to record the history of Indian cinema are an invaluable archive of the world¹s largest film industry. Her work on the legendary actor-director-producer Guru Dutt has been especially important in establishing his status outside of India as one of the world¹s key filmmakers. Nasreen Munni Kabir is the author of: Guru Dutt: A Life in Cinema (1996 and 2005); Talking Films: Conversations on Hindi Cinema with Javed Akhtar (1999); Bollywood the Indian Cinema Story (2002); Talking Songs: Javed Akhtar in Conversation (2005); Yours Guru Dutt: Intimate Letters of a Great Indian Filmmaker (2006); and The Immortal Dialogue of K. Asif¹s Mughal-E-Azam (2007). Her dozens of films, many produced for Britain's Channel 4, include Movie Mahal, In Search of Guru Dutt, Lata in Her Own Voice, and The Inner and Outer Life of Shah Rukh Khan, an intimate portrait of the Hindi film superstar. She has also directed a documentary on the making of the stage musical Bombay Dreams for the BBC1 Omnibus series, and a profile of Bismillah Khan entitled Bismillah of Benaras for BBC4. She regularly programs an Indian film season for Channel 4 and has organized series for other venues, including Turner Classic Movies. Among her many awards, Nasreen Munni Kabir won the 1999 Women of Achievement Award in Arts and Culture, and in 2000 became a Governor of the British Film Institute.

“Ramayana Remix: Two Hindi Film Songs as Epic Commentary”
Date: Thursday, December 4
Time: 4:00 -5:30 p.m.
Location: UCC 2520D (Seminar Room)
Presenter: Philip Lutgendorf, University of Iowa

2007

Redefining Reservations in India: Gender and Strategies for Dalit, Other Backwards Class and Women's Representation in Elections
Date: March 8
Presenter: Wendy Singer, NEH Professor of South Asian History and Global Migrations
Director of International Studies - Kenyon College

Nuns at the Stupas: What Inscriptions Reveal About How Buddhist Nuns in Ancient India Were Regarded y Others and How They Saw Themselves
Date: April 12
Presenter: Nancy Barnes

Towards a History of the National Archives in India
Date: April 19
Presenter: Dipesh Chakrabarty, Professor in History, South Asian Languages, and Civilizations at the University of Chicago

Organizational Meeting
Date: September 13
Location: IP Commons (1117 UCC)

Bissu: A Duel in the Hills (2002); 30 minutes, English and subtitles
Date: September 20
Presenter: Anup Kumar, Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa
Location: IP Commons (1117 UCC)

An Orientalist Lost and Found: F.W. Ellis and the Dravidian Language Family
Date: September 27
Presenter: Thomas R. Trautmann, Marshall D. Sahlins Collegiate Professor of History and Anthropology, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Sponsor: South Asian Studies Program and International Programs
Location: IP Commons (1117 UCC)

Purdah as Pathology: Medical Research and Reproductive Health in Early 20th Century India
Date: October 4
Presenter: Maneesha Lal, History and Asian American Studies, Binghamton University
Location: IP Commons (1117 UCC)

God-bothering
Date: October 18
Presenter: Kiran Nagarkar, International Writing Program, University of Iowa
Location: IP Commons (1117 UCC)

Reality in Fiction: The Presumed Innocence of Writers and Readers
Date: October 25
Presenter: Kavery Namibsam, International Writing Program, University of Iowa
Location: IP Commons (1117 UCC)

Death and the Subaltern
Date: October 26
Presenter: Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, English, New York University
Location: Gerber Lounge

Learning About Microfinance and Social Entrepreneurship: A Tamil Nadu, India Experience
Date: November 1
Presenter: Ed Brands and Raj Rajagopal, Geography, University of Iowa
Location: IP Commons (1117 UCC)

Between Charity and Rights: Orphans and Philanthropy in New Delhi
Date: November 15
Presenter: Erica Bornstein, Anthropology, UW-Milwaukee
Location: IP Commons (1117 UCC)

Discussion of “The Clash Within” by Martha Nussbaum
Date: November 29
Location: IP Commons (1117 UCC

SASP Meeting
Date: December 6
Location: IP Commons (1117 UCC)

2006

"The Mahabharata and assisted reproductive technology"
Date: February 16
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Shaeffer Hall
Presenter: Swasti Bhattacharyya, Buena Vista College, Storm Lake, Iowa

"Transforming Rural Weddings and Redefining 'conjugality' in North India"
Date: February 13
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 315 Phillips Hall
Presenter: Susan Wadley, Syracuse University

Gayatri Chatterjee
Date: March 23
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 302 Schaeffer Hall

Servchetan Katoch, University of Iowa
Date: March 30
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 315 Phillips Hall

"Materialities of Devotion in Indian Film going Practice"
Date: April 13
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 315 Phillips Hall
Presenter: Adi Hastings, University of Iowa

"Environmental Activism and the Hindu Tradition"
Date: April 27
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: 302 Schaeffer Hall
Presenter: George James, University of Northern Texas