News

SASNET – A Unique National Swedish Research and Information Network


– BY LARS EKLUND


 In May 2000, the Swedish South Asian Studies Network (SASNET) was created through agrant from Sida/SAREC and Lund University with the aim to create an institutional base inSweden for academic competence building and thematic work on present day South Asia.The long-term goal was to strengthen the relatively weak academic competence in Swedenin the field of South Asia. SASNET soon became a successful network, funded by Sida for 10 years and after that by continued Lund University funding.

 

Till December 2016, SASNET was a unique feature – a national all-Swedish research and information network, not found elsewhere in the World. However, from January 2017 SASNET was transformed into alocal Lund University Research Centre. It still keeps the network name but in reality it is a completely different institution than the ”old” SASNET. This is the story of old SASNET, 2000-2016, the SASNET that was built up by Staffan Lindberg and Lars Eklund in 2001, and within a few years became an internaionally highly recognised network connecting all Swedish and Nordic researchers in the field of South Asian Studies.

 

Please find the complete story of SASNET, 2000-2016, written by Lars Eklund HERE.

EASAS Events

IMPORTANT: the 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies, ECSAS 2020 has been postponed until July 26-29, 2021. For further information regarding ECSAS 2020 please visit: https://ecsas2021.univie.ac.at/ecsas2021-special-circular/ and especially the FAQ.

ECSAS 2020 Reflecting on Disciplinary Boundaries

  • EASAS Research Student Awards (ECSAS 2018 in Paris):

    One of the stated aims of the European Association for South Asian Studies is to encourage and

    support young scholars working in the field of South Asian Studies. In pursuit of this aim, the

    Association offered awards linked to its biennial conference. Awards were to be made for the most

    outstanding papers by currently registered research students presenting at the conference.

    Awardees EASAS Research Student Award 2018 (in alphabetical order):
    Madihah Akhter: A Wholly Unsuitable Heir: The Bhopal Sucession Case, 1924-26

    PhD Candidate, Dept. of History
    Stanford University, USA


    Madihah Akhter is a fifth year PhD candidate specializing in modern South Asian history. She received a Master’s in History from Tufts University and a Bachelor’s in History from UCLA. Her research and teaching interests include modern South Asia, gender, queer and transhistory, and global history. Her doctoral dissertation, titled, "In Her Own Right: Sovereignty and Gender in Princely Bhopal, 1901-1926," explores the mutual dependencies and contestations of sovereignty between princely rulers and imperial administrators in the twentieth century. Specifically, she excavates the possibilities of princely sovereignty in Bhopal under the direction of its ruler, Sultan Jahan Begum (r. 1901-1926). Bhopal, located in central India, was the only princely state under female rule in the twentieth century and was the second largest Muslim princely state in India. In this project, she interrogates the conceptual and practical articulations of "in her own right" through gendered space, history writing, anticolonialism, symbolism and succession. Her dissertation engages with political theory on early modern and modern sovereignty in South Asia, feminist analysis of performance and embodied sovereignties, and postcolonial scholarship on anticolonialism and nationalism.

    Sara Kazmi:     Gender, Vernacular Tradition and the Politics of Voice in Punjabi Poetry: Radical Re-tellings of Hir by Amrita Pritam and Nasreen Anjum Bhatti

    PhD Candidate in Criticism and Culture
    Department of English
    University of Cambridge

    Sara Kazmi is a doctoral student at the University of Cambridge. Her project explores literary radicalism in postcolonial Punjab, focusing on poets and playwrights whose work addresses the relationship between emancipatory politics in the contemporary period and vernacular genealogies of critique. Her research examines the reworking of folk forms by contemporary writers to address issues of gender, caste and class in the making of region and nation.

Past EASAS Events

Past EASAS Academic Workshops

  • The fifth EASAS Workshop on Price of Belonging took place at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld University, Germany, from 12 to 13 July 2018. During the two-day focused discussion group, it was intended to jointly work through and deepen understanding of human sacrifice that belonging implies by focusing upon specific case studies in different South Asian countries. The aim of the workshop was to look into the interior of human bonds that are less about a relationship between the self and a different ‘Other’ – an already established approach to
    investigate belonging and more of a relationship between the self and a distinct ‘Same’, a perspective that will guide us to the hidden yet scarcely understood spheres of belonging.
    The following questions were addressed: How do collectives make claims upon individual persons? How do individuals gain and secure their membership? How are individual and collective commitments (re)negotiated in everyday situations? What makes some people stay in a formation while others opt for an exit? What happens to those who
    are unable or unwilling to bear the costs? Themes of interest include: consequences of class, caste, ethnic and gendered belonging and membership; inter-marriage; individual navigation through collective constellations.
  • The fourth EASAS Workshop on Worker-Contractors: Refiguring low-level labour market intermediaries in contemporary India took place at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK, on 7 July 2017.
    This one-day symposium was to examine on the formation and working practices of low-level contractors, understood as key figures underpinning India’s economic boom.
  • The third EASAS Workshop on ‘Potent Substances’ between Asia and Europe: Redefining materia medica in Tibetan and Himalayan Medicine and Buddhist Ritual took place at the University of Vienna, Austria, from 1 to 4 September 2016. This workshop focused on how medical and ritual substances are identified and categorised in Tibetan traditions, as well as possible impacts on their ‘potency’ within recent EU pharmaceutical regulations.


  • The second EASAS Workshop on South Asian Apparel Workers in the Post-Rana Plaza World: Worker Health Beyond the Factory Floor took place at the University of Edinburgh, UK, from 15 to 16 July 2016. This workshop focused on worker health in the garment industry since the collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh in 2013.

 

  • The first EASAS Workshop on Opening Up Intimate Spaces: Women Writing and Autobiography in India took place at the Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan, Poland, from 19 to 20 May 2016. This workshop focused on Indian women’s writings in India. Most studies of India have tended to focus on the public and the political spheres, seeing them entirely in masculine terms. The fact of women’s much lower literacy levels, their containment within ideologies of femininity and domesticity, compounded by the deafening silence of the imperial archive on women’s experiences have led to the relegation of women’s writings to the margins of mainstream Indian history. This workshop follows an important shift in studies of Indian history towards a reappraisal of women’s roles in the making of pre-modern and modern India by focusing on their writings about their lives.

Past EASAS PhD Workshops

  • The 12th  EASAS PhD Workshop took place at the University of Stuttgart from 19 to 21 September
    2019. Participants hailed from ten countries, in alphabetical order, from Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Twelve students’ chapters were presented by one of the fellow students and commented upon by a senior member of staff. The format of presenting and discussing chapters followed the usual pattern employed at EASAS doctoral workshops.
    The Stuttgart workshop had lively and intense discussions on all presented topics, which ranged from historical to anthropological, and linguistic to performative subject areas. The in-depth discussions offered students with maximum quality feedback on their work in progress.
    The 12th EASAS PhD Workshop was convened by Dr. Margret Frenz, FRHistS, FHEA, University of Stuttgart, and Dr. Georg Berkemer, Humboldt University Berlin.
  • The 11th EASAS PhD Workshop in South Asian Studies was held from 22 to 24 September 2017 in Naples at L'Orientale University of Naples. The EASAS Doctoral Workshops take place annually and aim at giving PhD students the oppertunity to discuss their thesis with fellow PhD students and senior scholars who work on South Asia.
    The 11th EASAS Doctoral Workshop was convened by Dr. Stefania Cavaliere (L'Orientale University, Naples) and Prof. Dr. Alessandra Consolaro (University of Turin).

In Memoriam

 

Dietmar Rothermund (1933-2020),
Professor of South Asian History at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (1963-2001),
Chairman of the European Association for South Asian Studies (1997-2008),

 

Honorary President of the European Association for South Asian Studies (2010-2020)

 

It is with profound sadness that we announce that Professor Dietmar Rothermund passed away on 9  March 2020. He was an internationally distinguished historian of South Asia who focused on the history of Indian political ideas and Indian economic history.

 

In the first half of the 1950s, Rothermund studied history and philosophy in Marburg and Munich. A Fulbright fellowship took him to the University of Pennsylvania where he received his PhD in 1959 for a thesis on the social history of America. After completing his studies, he travelled to India in 1960 as a recipient of a German Research Foundation (DFG) scholarship. This journey was decisive for his future research which thereafter centred on India.

 

Professor Rothermund’s entire academic career was associated with the South Asia Institute at the University of Heidelberg where he worked from 1963 until his retirement in 2001. From there he was awarded his habilitation in 1968 for the monograph Die politische Willensbildung in Indien, 1900–1960 and was soon appointed to the professorship in the history of South Asia. He also directed the Institute for 15 years during several separate terms and succeeded in establishing an  international network for research and cooperation.

 

In 1968, Professor Rothermund was among the founding fathers of the European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies (ECMSAS) that later evolved into the European Conference on South Asian Studies (ECSAS) and gave birth to the European Association for South Asian Studies (EASAS). He contributed immensely to the association’s development for more than four decades and served as its first Chairman from 1997 to 2008. Professor Rothermund is especially remembered by EASAS members for his dedication to the cause of promoting South Asian Studies in Europe. In recognition of his decades-long engagement for and representation of South Asian Studies within and beyond academic circles, Dietmar Rothermund was made the – only – honorary life member of EASAS. His inspiration and presence will be sorely missed at future conferences and meetings.

 

A prolific scholar, in addition to numerous scholarly articles, Professor Rothermund authored many monographs, including Government, Landlord and Peasant in India: Agrarian Relations under British Rule 1865-1935 (1978), An Economic History of India (1993), Mahatma Gandhi: An Essay in Political Biography (1999), India: The Rise of an Asian Giant (2008) and Contemporary India: Political, Economic and Social Developments Since 1947 (2012). His most popular and probably most widely read work, A History of India (originally published in German in 1982), co-written with Hermann Kulke, is well known to students of South Asian Studies across the world as it has appeared in multiple, constantly up-dated editions and has been translated into several languages.

 

In 1988, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London. His work on the dissemination of knowledge on South Asia saw him recognised by the German government with the Federal Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2011) and by the German-Indian Society with the Rabindranath Tagore Culture Prize (2011).

 

The world-wide community of South Asian scholars has lost one of its most eminent members. He will be remembered as a distinguished professor who put South Asian Studies firmly on the academic map, as a supportive colleague bringing scholars together across Europe, and as an astute and kind human being,

 

The EASAS Council and Community

 

Photo: Prof. Dietmar Rothermund at the ECMSAS Conference 2008 in Manchester (courtesy of Lars Eklund).

Other Events Related to South Asian Studies

AJEI Webinar Series - Online Session Forum of Associations for South Asian Studies

On the 6th of April, for the 4th Webinar of #IndiaMatters, the AJEI will debate with @AFRASE_org @BASAS_SAS @EAYRSA_ @GisReseauAsie and many others on the relevance of area studies!

 

To register to this Webinar, click here:https://t.co/2BSkGWg9v7 pic.twitter.com/nxN79CW8Fj

 

 

The French Youth Association for Indian Studies (AJEI) is pleased to invite you to the 4th session of its 2021 webinar series: India Matters on April 6th at 1:00 pm CET/ 5:30 pm IST.

 

 

This time, the online session will turn into a forum of areal associations. It will include representatives from the French Youth Association for Indian Studies (AJEI), the South Asia Research and Studies Venice and Turin Italy (Sarasvati Association), the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies (JASAS), the European Association for South Asian Studies (EASAS), the European Association of Young Researchers on South Asia (EAYRSA), the French Association for Research on Southeast Asia (AFRASE), and The French Academic Network on Asian Studies (GIS Asie).
After each of these associations presented who they are and what they do, we will have a dialog on the role of these associations in Asian studies, particularly South Asian ones. In the menu will be discussions about the forms and governance of these associations (youth association, association of researchers, network of institutions), the scale of the association (France, Italy, Japan, Europe), and the area of studies (India, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Asia). Generally, this forum will be the chance to create bridges between different academic worlds focusing on South Asian studies and initiate a discussion about the current challenges and opportunities of areal associations in Asia.

 

The session will take place on Zoom, is open to all, and will last about an hour. If you wish to attend, please register here. We will send you a Zoom link a few days before the session.

 

Next two sessions of the year will take place:

On May 4th, when socioeconomist Floriane Bolazzi will talk about a classic subject in Indian studies, at least since Louis Dumont — that is social stratification. Drawing on her extensive PhD research on Palanpur, she will focus on the issue of upward mobility and discuss to what extent the analytical models invented in the global North can also be valid in India.

 

On June 7th, when we will eventually listen to sociologist Roland Lardinois. He’s a well-known India scholar and has extensively researched on the history and epistemology of Indian studies. Drawing on his personal experience and work, he will tell us about the structuration of the field in France.

 

If you missed the previous sessions, don’t worry, we’ve recorded them and put them up on our Youtube channel here.

AJEI - Webinar series « India Matters »

The Association Jeunes Etudes Indiennes (AJEI) is pleased to invite you to its 2021 webinar series:

India Matters 

In the past few years, the AJEI has found it difficult to hire new members. In 1998, its founders had seen India as peculiar enough to justify a related association for the young French researchers, but it would seem that this interest has faded away.

Is it because neoliberal globalization erased some of the national specificities over the past 30 years? Or is the country better studied as part of larger areas such as South Asia or the « global South »? Is it that India, with its myriads of regional and social divisions, is too diverse to develop an area-specialist knowledge? Or has the continuous rise of monodisciplinary approaches been fatal to Indian studies?

As a scientific field with origins that can be traced back to the end of the 18th century, the contemporary importance of Indian studies is seemingly attested by the works of India scholars from the country and abroad. This webinar is an attempt to consolidate some of the contemporary studies on India. We will hear presentations on current Indian themes every first Tuesday of the month at 1:00 pm CET/ 5:30 pm IST, this:

  • On January 5th, political scientist Khaliq Parkar will inaugurate the webinar series with a talk on the governance of India’s smart cities. He will tell us more about the Indian specificities of these new urban models specifically related to technology and data based on his current PhD work on the topic.
  • On February 2nd, members of a Franco-Indian research collective will talk about the political, geopolitical and socioeconomic impact of the Covid-19 in India. Stemming from different disciplines, they will sketch research perspectives on the topic.

  • On March 2nd, GIS specialist Alexandre Cebeillac will talk about the issues of collecting and analyzing quantitative data from India. He will draw on his experience with geotagged social media data as well as government databases in a timely contribution as the 16th Indian Census, will be taken in 2021.
     
  • April 6th will call for a debate on the relevance of area studies in Asia and their French networks with representatives of areal associations. It will include Johan Krieg from the French Academic Network of Asian Studies, Rémi Desmoulière, from the Association française pour la recherche sur l’Asie du Sud-Est (AFRASE), and Yves-Marie Rault Chodankar from the Association des Jeunes Etudes Indiennes (AJEI).

  • On May 4th, socioeconomist Floriane Bolazzi by talking about a classic subject in Indian studies, at least since Louis Dumont — that is social stratification. Drawing on her extensive PhD research on Palanpur, she will particularly focus on the issue of upward mobility and discuss to what extent the analytical models invented in the global North can also be valid in India.

  • On June 7th, we will eventually listen to sociologist Roland Lardinois. He’s a well-known India scholar and has extensively researched on the history and epistemology of Indian studies. Drawing on his personal experience and work, he will tell us about the structuration of the field in France.

The sessions will take place on Zoom, are open to all, and will last about an hour. If you wish to attend, please register here. We will send you a Zoom link one day before each session.

NIHSA - the New International Histories of South Asia network is delighted to announce our upcoming event series:
South Asia Unbound: Spaces and Scales of Internationalism

 

Whose international matters, and why? How are geographic regions constructed? What are the channels of engagement between a place, its people, its institutions, and the world? How do we understand the non-West’s influence in contemporary global interactions? Over the course of six weekly events, starting 26 February, ‘South Asia Unbound’ brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from across the world to investigate states, institutions, networks, communities and individuals as agents of South Asian global engagement at the local, regional, national and supra-national levels, spanning the time before and after independence and indeed going back to pre-colonial times.


For information about the conference, registration, and the greater NIHSA network, please visit the conference website.

You can also find further information and join our email list by contacting nihsa@kcl.ac.uk or following us on twitter at @NIHSAnetwork

 

We look forward to ‘seeing’ many of you there!

Best wishes, 

Bérénice Guyot-Rechard (King’s College London) and Elisabeth Leake (University of Leeds)

The White Rose South Asia Network


Call for Papers:

4th Annual Conference - "Space, Place and Temporalities"

 

 

 

 

The White Rose South Asia Network is hosting their fourth annual conference online. This has been rescheduled to April 2021, on the theme Space, Place and Temporalisites.

 

India’s controversial Citizenship Amendment Act of December 2019, which offers amnesty to non-Muslim religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, was announced by the federal government in order to protect religious minorities fleeing persecution from these three Muslim-majority countries.

 

This law, following on from what was popularly labelled as Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban in 2017, highlights a political climate where forms of nationalism are terrifyingly resurging. State borders are being redefined and contested the world over, from Brexit to the Scottish wish for independence. As such, it has become even more pressing to investigate space, place and temporalities, especially with regards to South Asia.


This event will bring together postgraduate students from across the arts, humanities and social sciences to consider various aspects of South Asian society.
We are inviting abstracts on:
- pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial histories;
- migration, mobilities, and diaspora;
- literature, arts and films;
- contemporary politics, development and governance;
- gender studies;
- religious and cultural studies;
- medical humanities;
- environment and ecology;
- cartography and geography;
- and comparative studies of South Asian regions and economies.

We especially encourage submissions that critically evaluate the tensions between the space of everyday life and the larger macro-scale of space of the region and the nation-state.
Please see the full updated CfP for further details, and share with those interested.
The deadline for proposal submissions is 18 December 2020. 
 


Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Hindi-Urdu at Wake Forest University

WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY's Middle East and South Asia Studies Program is seeking applications for a tenure-track position of Assistant Professor in Hindi-Urdu to start July 1, 2021. As a program, we are a large cohort of faculty across disciplines representing a variety of research and teaching interests pertaining to the Middle East and South Asia. This Hindi-Urdu position marks an expansion into the formal, permanent instruction of South Asian languages.

You can find the full Job Announcement for a Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Hindi-Urdu with the Middle East and South Asia Studies Program at WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA, HERE.

Please see also: https://hr.wfu.edu/careers/