Dalit Film and Cultural Festival
2019-02-24 10:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York)
NOTE: The timeline of the event has been updated, please refer to the schedule down below. 9:15 am – 7:00 pm

SCHEDULE: FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT SHOWINGS PLEASE REFER TO DALITFILMFEST.COM

The Politics of Performance: Contesting Caste, Sexuality, and Gender in Contemporary Maharashtra, India
2019-03-06 11:30 - 13:30
Prof. Paik’s event is cancelled due to The New School closed due to weather conditions today. We are now hosting her talk from 11:30-1:30 pm on Wednesday, March 6th at India China Institute located on the 9th floor of 66 Fifth Avenue(between 12th and 13th Streets). Lunch will be served. In order to plan properly, please email us at indiachina@newschool.edu and let us know you will still be attending. To RSVP, click here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/updated-venue-the-politics-of-performance-contesting-caste-sexuality-and-gender-in-contemporary-tickets-56670318448 Buy Tickets Buy Tickets on Eventbrite Buy Tickets on Eventbrite

Roger T. Ames, "Deweyan and Confucian Ethics: A Challenge to the Ideology of Individualism"
2019-03-15 16:00 - 18:00

Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China
2019-04-18 18:00 - 19:30
Diana Fu is an assistant professor of political science at The University of Toronto and an affiliate of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy Asian Institute. Her research examines popular contention, state power, civil society, and citizenship, with a focus on contemporary China. Her book “Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China” (2018, Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics Series) theorizes a counter-intuitive form of mobilization under authoritarian rule. It won the 2018 American Political Science Association’s Luebbert Prize for the best book in comparative politics and the 2019 International Studies Association’s International Political Sociological Section’s best book award.

Her articles have appeared in Perspectives on Politics (2019), The China Journal (2018), Governance (2017), Comparative Political Studies (2017, co-winner of the best article published in CPS), and Modern China (2009).

She holds a D.Phil. In Politics and an M.Phil. In Development Studies with distinction from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She was previously a Walter H. Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University and a Predoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research has been supported by the Harold Hyram Wingate Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is a Public Intellectuals Fellow at the National Committee on US-China Relations. Her research and media interviews have appeared in Boston Review, CBC, The Economist, The Financial Times, Reuters, and The New York Times, among others. She enjoys Latin dance and creative writing.

When advocacy organizations are forbidden from rallying people to take to the streets, what do they do? When activists are detained for coordinating protests, are their hands ultimately tied? Based on political ethnography inside both legal and illegal labor organizations in China, the book Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China authored by Professor Diana Fu reveals how state repression is deployed on the ground and to what effect on mobilization. It presents a novel dynamic of civil society contention – mobilizing without the masses – that lowers the risk of activism under duress. This dynamic represents a third pathway of contention that challenges conventional understandings of mobilization in an illiberal state.

"Kailash Yatra: A long Walk to mount Kailash Through Humla" with Kevin Bubriski
2019-05-02 17:00 - 18:30

Rashmi Sadana public talk - Urban Space, Public Spheres: The Delhi Metro in the Imagination and the Everyday
2019-09-25 17:00 - 18:30
RSVP

Political Crises in Hong Kong and Jammu & Kashmir
2019-10-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Starr Foundation Hall, UL102 63 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10011
Register Here

The current crises in Hong Kong and Jammu and Kashmir, though distinct in their historical and political contours, arose when central governments sought to increase sovereign power against the aspirations of many local residents for unrealized autonomy. Public authorities have laid claim to constitutional-legal provisions to support their stances, and have simultaneously resorted to coercion against local opposition. Such actions have prompted widespread international and some domestic condemnation. At the same time, large sections of mainstream media and publics in China and India have offered competing narratives that are generally supportive of the authorities. Please join us for this panel on the two crises and how they juxtapose the challenges of nationalism and liberal democratic norms. Panelists will explore the roots of the conflicts, constitutional questions, the strategies of state authorities and local resistance, the range of domestic and global responses, and prospects for the future.

Ho-fung Hung is the Henry M. & Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy at the Sociology Department and School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of the award-winning book The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World and Protest with Chinese Characteristics: Demonstrations, Riots, and Petitions in the Mid-Qing Dynasty, both published by Columbia University Press. His articles have appeared in American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, Development and Change, the New Left Review and elsewhere. His analyses of the Chinese and global political economy and Hong Kong politics have been featured or cited in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, among other publications.

Zha Jianying is a writer, journalist, and cultural commentator in both English and Chinese. She is the author of two books in English, Tide Players: The Movers and Shakers of a Rising China (named “One of the best books of 2011” by The Economist), and China Pop: How Soap Operas, Tabloids and Bestsellers Are Transforming a Culture, and five books of non-fiction and fiction in Chinese. Her work has appeared widely in publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Dushu, and Wanxiang. Tide Players was selected by The Economist as “One of the Best Books of 2011.” A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she also has been a regular commentator on current events on Chinese television, and works as the China Representative of the India China Institute at The New School in New York.

Haley Duschinski is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Law, Justice & Culture at Ohio University. She is a legal and political anthropologist with research specializations in law and conflict, militarization and impunity, popular protest, and law and memory in Kashmir. Her research has appeared in journals such as Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Cultural Studies, Race & Class, Memory Studies, Anthropology Today, Interventions, and Anthropological Quarterly. Her current book project is a legal ethnography of how cases relating to securitization and militarization have been contested and adjudicated in the courts of Kashmir. At Ohio University, Professor Duschinski teaches anthropology courses on violence, peace, human rights, and law.

Sandipto Dasgupta is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the New School for Social Research. His research is in the history of modern political and social thought, especially the political theory of empire, decolonization, and postcolonial presents. His book manuscript, Legalizing the Revolution (under contract with Cambridge University Press), reconstructs the institutionalization of nascent postcolonial futures through a historical study of the Indian constitution making experience. He received his PhD in political theory from Columbia University. Before arriving at the New School this fall, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and the British Academy, and taught at Ashoka and Columbia University.

Fifth International Conference on the Unfinished Legacy of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar - Dalits in Global Context: Rethinking Gender and Religion
2019-10-24 - 2019-10-26
RSVP for The Fifth International Conference on Unfinished Legacy of Dr. Ambedkar

From October 24-26, 2019, the New School will host the Fifth International Conference on the Legacy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. This year’s conference theme is Dalits in Global Context: Rethinking Gender and Religion.

Ambedkar Conference Agenda Final

5th International Ambedkar Conference Bios

The conference will explore critical issues faced by the Dalit community, with a focus on the intersecting nature of gender, religion, and caste-based discrimination. Since its inception, the Ambedkar Conference has convened various scholars and practitioners, institutions and organizations across the world, creating a space to discuss the politics of equal dignity and equal rights for Dalits. This year, we hope to further this conversation.

While the New School is this year’s host, the conference is a collaboration between the following universities and think tanks:

Brandeis University Barnard College, Columbia University University of Massachusetts, Amherst The Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, India SAMATA Foundation, NepalUniversity of CincinnatiCASTE: a Global Journal on Social Exclusion International Ambedkar Mission, USABoston Study GroupIndia China Institute, The New SchoolJulien Studley Graduate Study Program in International AffairsThe Global Studies Program, The New School

Related Event:

Second Annual Ambedkar Lectures at Columbia University, organized by Anupama Rao

Oct. 17th: Race, Caste, and American Pragmatism

Oct. 18th: Remaking Publics: Gender, Affect, Insurgence, Presence

Other Related Events:

Workshop (invite-only) on Dalits in Global Context: Rethinking Religion and Gender Sponsored by The Henry Luce Foundation

From October 21-24, 2019, the India China Institute at The New School is hosting a focused workshop along the theme of the conference. The primary goal of the workshop is to convene an invited group of Global Dalit Change-makers — young and emerging scholars from within and outside of the Dalit community who are already working at the junction of gender, religion, caste, and social justice. ICI will also invite established scholars and practitioners in the field to help inspire the workshop with intellectual rigor, deep critical inquiry, and innovative practices.

This will be a new kind of conversation— the first workshop of its kind outside of South Asia, one that combines scholarship and activism, and strengthens conversations between scholars and practitioners when analyzing caste-based discrimination. The selected group of workshop participants will then join the Ambedkar Conference at the New School, where they will present their work.

100 Years of New

2019 marks The New School’s centennial year, and thus provides an opportunity to reflect not only on the university’s history of critical social inquiry, but also the early days of the school’s founding. B.R. Ambedkar, while a student at Columbia University, studied under one of The New School’s co-founders, John Dewey, and was greatly influenced by him. The Ambedkar Conference is an opportunity for the New School to convene individuals who are writing and researching in the New School’s spirit of creative and critical scholarship, and who, more than anything, are training their gazes on a future we’ll soon inhabit.

The Bluestone Rising Scholars Prize

Brandeis University, original convener of the International Conference on the Unfinished Legacy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, awarded inaugural Bluestone Rising Scholar Prizes to two early career scholars, to be published in CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion. The prize recipients will take part in an Award Ceremony at Brandeis University, and then join the International Conference at The New School.

More Conference Information:

Information for Call for Papers

Call for Papers

I am born a Hindu, but I will not die a Hindu, for that is in my power.

B. R. Ambedkar, Yeola Conference, Maharashtra, India, 193

The most problematic aspect of Hindutva is the issue of the treatment of lower castes and tribes. It’s not only that you can ignore some people, but that you identify who it is that you can ignore.

Amartya Sen, Harvard University Interview in The Hindu, Feb. 28, 2019

According to the International Dalit Solidarity Network, “caste discrimination is one of the biggest human rights violations facing the international community today; both in terms of the numbers affected and the severity of the human rights violations caused by this form of discrimination.” The caste system is one of the most brutal forms of hierarchical social organization and caste-based discrimination affects over 250 million people in South Asia and across the globe. Dalits, that is, the “former Untouchables” are on the lowest rung of the Hindu social structure and South Asian society. Despite some increased legal protections in caste-affected countries within and without South Asia, the Dalit community continues to face indignities ranging from daily humiliations, to extreme poverty and servitude, to violence and murder. These indignities are still largely shaped by understandings and practices of religion and underlying notions of purity and impurity as determined by birth and exacerbated by gender relations. For the Dalit community, the entrenched caste system sanctions a massive denial of citizenship and fundamental rights which others enjoy under the constitutions of countries in South Asia.

During this conference, we aim to address issues or questions related to the theme of religion, caste, gender and social justice in or comparative to the South Asian context. These questions might include some of the following:

How can we rethink and reimagine established and emerging debates concerning these issues on methodologies, research, policies, and trans-boundary collaborations?

How have the hierarchies of gender and sexuality affected and been transformed by Dalit women and men?

What are the personal and political actions that Dalit women and men have taken to negotiate with patriarchy, both inside and outside the Dalit community?

How do we engage with Dalit women’s lives at the intersections of gender, caste, class, and religion?

How have Dalits used practice and faith to claim dignity and build solidarity? How have they expressed their experiences and aspirations in literary and other art forms to resist injustice and inhumanity?

In what ways have Dalit women (and men) carved out a new transnational political space to imagine a brighter future?

How can we analyze the intersections of caste and religion beyond Hinduism, for example in Islam, Christianity, Buddhism or Sikhism, specifically in South Asia?

For more information about Dalit issues, please visit:

International Dalit Solidarity Network

Indian Institute of Dalit Studies

SAMATA Foundation

The Power of Place: Contentious Politics in Twentieth-Century Shanghai and Bombay
2019-10-29 17:30 - 19:00
India China Day 2024

Gallery

India China Day 2024

News Archive, Student Related, Student Research Fund, Uncategorized

India China Day 2024On September 25, India China Institute celebrated the 2024 India [...] By India China Institute|2024-10-28T13:01:38-04:00October 18th, 2024|Categories: News Archive, Student Related, Student Research Fund, Uncategorized|Comments Off on India China Day 2024Read More

Meet our Post-Doctoral Fellow – Keren Zhu

Gallery

Meet our Post-Doctoral Fellow – Keren Zhu

featured, News Archive, Visiting Scholars

Meet our Post-Doctoral Fellow – Keren Zhu India China Institute is proud to announce our new [...] By India China Institute|2023-11-15T16:17:04-05:00November 15th, 2023|Categories: featured, News Archive, Visiting Scholars|Comments Off on Meet our Post-Doctoral Fellow – Keren ZhuRead More

News from ICI Community – David López-García

Gallery

News from ICI Community – David López-García

featured, News Archive, Student Fellows 2018

News from ICI Community – David López-García Former ICI fellow David López-García has started a tenure [...] By India China Institute|2023-09-13T10:53:46-04:00September 11th, 2023|Categories: featured, News Archive, Student Fellows 2018|Comments Off on News from ICI Community – David López-GarcíaRead More

Meet our new Faculty Advisor: Sareeta Amrute

Gallery

Meet our new Faculty Advisor: Sareeta Amrute

featured, News Archive, Shifting Geographies

Meet our new Faculty Advisor: Sareeta Amrute Sareeta Amrute (Ph.D. Anthropology, U Chicago) is Associate Professor [...] By India China Institute|2024-12-04T17:31:32-05:00February 7th, 2023|Categories: featured, News Archive, Shifting Geographies|Comments Off on Meet our new Faculty Advisor: Sareeta AmruteRead More

Meet our New Faculty Advisor: Mark Larrimore

Gallery

Meet our New Faculty Advisor: Mark Larrimore

featured, News Archive, Shifting Geographies

Meet our New Faculty Advisor: Mark Larrimore Mark Larrimore (Ph.D. Religion, Princeton University) is Associate Professor [...] By India China Institute|2024-12-04T17:41:03-05:00February 7th, 2023|Categories: featured, News Archive, Shifting Geographies|Comments Off on Meet our New Faculty Advisor: Mark LarrimoreRead More

First Biennial Conference on China-India Studies The India China Institute was a proud co-organizer of [...] By Grace Hou|2023-02-24T14:52:20-05:00January 22nd, 2023|Categories: Uncategorized|Comments Off on First Biennial Conference on China-India StudiesRead More
Previous12345···50Next

Fueling Revolution: Carbon Technocracy in the Early People's Republic of China
2019-11-14 17:00 - 18:30
RSVP: Fueling Revolution

Victor Seow is a historian of technology, industry, and the environment. His research interests revolve around questions of how technological developments intersect with economic life and environmental change in the making and unmaking of industrial society. Geographically, he focuses on East Asia, which, in the modern era, witnessed monumental transformations across its vast expense and multiple environments as regimes that ranged from imperialist to socialist pursued industrial expansion through heavily technological means. His research sets out to map the contours of those transformations in the past that gave rise to outcomes with which the region still grapples in the present, from despoiled environments to divided societies. At the same time, his work situates East Asia within a global frame and seeks to show how attention to East Asian experiences may sharpen historical and contemporary understandings of technology and the environment in our modern world.

Seow is currently finishing his first book, Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia, which explores how coal resources and mining technologies shaped Chinese and Japanese experiences with global industrial modernity. Centered on the Fushun colliery in Manchuria, which once boasted the largest coal mining operations in Asia, this project examines how the various Chinese and Japanese regimes that had at different times owned and operated the Fushun coal mines became committed to large-scale, state-led energy extraction amidst concerns over economic growth, resource scarcity, and national autarky. Pivotal to this process was the development and deployment of technologies of extraction: from methods such as open-pit mining and shale oil distillation that enabled the extraction of carbon energy to mechanisms such as fingerprinting and calorie counting that allowed for the extraction of the human labor undergirding the entire enterprise. Grounded in a range of Chinese and Japanese sources, including engineering students’ practicum reports, workers’ oral histories, and the personal papers of mining managers, this project uncovers links between the intensification of coal extraction and the rise of technocratic governance in transwar East Asia, ultimately contributing to interdisciplinary debates about the relationship between energy and the state.

Other ongoing projects include a history of scientific management in China and an environmental history of Chinese innovation as well as two collaborative projects: one on Mr. Science in May Fourth China and beyond (with Sean Hsiang-lin Lei) and the other on technologies of production in East Asian history (with Dagmar Schäfer).

At Harvard, Seow offers or will be offering courses in the history of modern science and technology in East Asia, the history of the factory, and the history of technology and capitalism.

Born and raised in Singapore, Seow received his B.A. in History and Political Science from McGill University and his Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University. Before joining the Harvard faculty in 2017, he was an Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University.
