India China Institute

Who is Xi? The Knowns and Unknowns of China's Political Future
2012-11-14 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Who is Xi?A Chinese critic recently observed of the political elite, “Those who are sharp and independent-minded will be eliminated by the system, and the most obedient ones, the ones without edges, will get promoted.”

Xi Jinping will be promoted to the top leadership position of the Chinese Communist Party at its 18th Party Congress, set to begin on November 8. This leadership succession, which last took place in 2002, puts Xi as “first among equals” in a collective leadership group comprising the Politburo and its Standing Committee–also to be unveiled at the Party Congress.

Xi Jinping’s recent speeches have been used by analysts to make a wide range of conflicting claims about China’s future. This lecture takes the occasion of the leadership transition to reflect on the study of Chinese politics and the sources of what has been termed “depoliticization,” or the suppression of competition and debate among China’s political elite. It is argued that this depoliticization is a relatively recent phenomenon, and a return to earlier party traditions of debate and deliberation is much needed to revitalize politics and public policy. This scenario is more likely than conventional claims that China is in some imagined “transition” toward democratization or other forms of regime transformation.

About Mark FrazierMark Frazier teaches and writes about the political economy of China. In the Fall of 2012, he joined The New School as Academic Co-director and Endowed Professor at the India China Institute and Professor at the Department of Politics. To his new role, Frazier brings two decades of research on political economy and labor politics in China and on Chinese-Indian relations. Frazier, who most recently was Associate Professor and Chair of the Department in International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma, earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Socialist Insecurity: Pensions and the Politics of Uneven Development in China (Cornell, 2010) and The Making of the Chinese Industrial Workplace: State, Revolution and Labor Management (Cambridge, 2002). His recent research examines the politics of labor and social policies in China.

Geopolitics of Climate Change: China and India in the Arctic
2012-10-23 12:00 - 15:00
Speaker: Sanjay Chaturvedi, a Fellow at India China Institute, The New School, and a Professor of Political Science at Panjab University, Chandigarh, India.

Description: In steadily proliferating popular, academic and official narratives of anthropogenic global warming, the Circumpolar Arctic, marked by the imagery of ‘diminishing ice’, ‘opening sea routes’ and ‘dwindling’ number of polar bears, has come to geopolitically embody somewhat abstract category of ‘climate change’. As geopolitical tectonic plates continue to shift in the post-cold war international system, and new alliances/alignments come to the fore, Asia’s rise (especially with regard to China and India) is likely to impact the theory and practices of Arctic governance in hitherto unanticipated ways. Both China and India – appropriately called “planetary powers” by some (in view of the global ecological impact and fallout of their fast-growing economies) – look able and determined to act as mapmakers and world orderers in their own right The very fact that the material andthe symbolic rise of Asia is tempered with the uncertainties associated with the era of climate change and scarcities (goods, resources and a clean environment) might further complicate the geopolitical discourse of Arctic “exceptionalism” and question at the same time increasingly untenable inside/outside geographies of cooperation centered on the Circumpolar Arctic.

New Chinese Documentaries: The Memory Project
2012-10-19 19:00 - 22:00

Social Innovation: Does it Matter? Cases from India and China
2012-10-18 18:00 - 20:00
Discussions of contemporary development policy are increasingly in registers of social, political and ecological crisis. How are citizens using social innovation to tackle the development-related problems within their localities? This lecture juxtaposes the claims of social innovation literature with civil society response to ecosystem degradation in Udaipur, Rajasthan, and Baoshan, China. It also raises questions of the value of US-centric concepts of social innovation, the nature of professional competence needed, and the politics of the complex negotiations through which social innovation is achieved.

Chat n' Chai - Student Fellows Presentations
2012-10-04 17:00 - 19:00
Ford Foundation and Starr Foundation fellows will present their field research that they conducted this summer in India and China. This is a great opportunity for The New School students to learn about opportunities at the ICI.

Mumbai's Barefoot Researchers
2012-09-24 17:00 - 19:00
Speaker: Anita Patil-Deshmukh, Senior Director of PUKAR.

Based upon the seminal essay by Professor Arjun Appadurai, “Right to Research”, PUKAR ( Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action & Research) has developed a very unique methodology of community based participatory research where the youth from the community are empowered with the knowledge and skills of doing social science research that they use as a tool for an alternative pedagogy, advocacy, intervention and transformation. They become learners and the producers of new urban knowledge that is located in their community and embedded in their aspirations, concerns, curiosity and experiential learning. This has lead to creating a successful model of collaboration between a world-renowned academic institution, a small research collective and a deeply marginalized community in Mumbai. This model is scalable and replicable in any marginalized community globally.

Subaltern Urbanization in India
2012-09-12 17:00 - 19:00
India China Institute in partnership with the Graduate Program in International Affairs and the Global Studies Program at The New School invites to a public talk on Subaltern Urbanization in India by Partha Mukhopadhyay, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research and an ICI Fellow.

India’s urbanisation is following at least two concomitant paths; first, a traditional metro-centric agglomeration process driven partly by the movement of people and second a process of ‘subaltern urbanisation’, involving, inter alia, the transformation of places, which are dispersed across the country, a process that can be usefully compared with in-situ urbanization in China. Subaltern urbanisation refers to the growth of such settlements that are independent of the metropolis and autonomous in their interactions with other settlements, local and global. Analyzing conventional and new data sources “against the grain”, we claim that there are many such economically vital smaller settlements in India, contrary to perceptions that India’s urbanisation is slow, that its smaller settlements are stagnant and its cities are not productive. Instead of basing policy on illusions of control, it is necessary to try and understand how agents construct this world, if we are to comprehend the ongoing Indian transformation.

Event Resources: Partha Mukhopadhyay’s Presentation

CFP: Second Annual Interdisciplinary Emerging Scholars Symposium on India China Studies
2012-08-07
Paper Proposals are only being accepted for Peking University. Those proposals are due 9/15/20122-3 November 2012, University of Delhi, New Delhi
9-10 November 2012, Peking University, Beijing
16 – 17 November 2012, The New School, New York City
The Emerging Scholars Symposium is a unique initiative designed to provide a platform for researchers pursuing an advanced degree in MPhil/PhD work and young scholars who received their PhDs within the last 5 years, to present their ongoing research. Advanced Master’s degree students from professional fields such as law, design, and architecture are also welcome to apply. We look forward to creative interventions from any discipline, methodology, or combination thereof that address any aspect of China’s and India’s economic, social, cultural, and political development.
The symposium is a part of ICI’s continuing commitment to build a community of scholars who are engaged in research that focuses on new and innovative approaches to understanding India China relations. For eight years ICI has provided a space for the establishment and strengthening of scholarly networks for emerging scholars of India and China who wish to share their research and explore opportunities for advancing individual and collaborative scholarship. The emerging scholars program also draws on The New School’s tradition of fostering horizontal and vertical knowledge-sharing across disciplines and amongst scholars in different stages of their careers.
Please email proposals to indiachina@newschool.edu.

Conspiracy, Fear and Hope of Federalism in Nepal
2012-05-11 17:30 - 19:30
India China Institute invites you to join us at a special public talk. The public event titled: Conspiracy, Fear and Hope of Federalism in Nepal” will feature two speakers: Prashant Jha and Anagha Neelakantan.Brief Bios of the Speakers: Prashant Jha is the Nepal correspondent of The Hindu newspaper and a political writer for The Kathmandu Post. He was a weekly columnist for Nepali Times between 2007 and early 2011. His areas of interest include Nepal’s political transition, the transformation of the Maoists, the Madhesi Movement, and India-Nepal relations. Anagha Neelakantan is a Senior Analyst with International Crisis Group. She covers Nepal’s peace process from various angles, including security sector and Maoist army issues, constitution drafting, identity politics, national political dynamics, international engagement and human rights issues. Anagha has worked in Nepal for over a decade, including as editor of Nepali Times and with the political office of the United Nations Mission in Nepa

LIMITED SEATING, FIRST COME FIRST SERVE BASIS“

India China Conversations | Prosperity amidst Poverty & Inequality
2012-04-28
View speakers’ presentations

India China Conversations | Emerging Scholars Symposium
2012-04-27 09:30 - 15:30
India China Institute invites you to India China Conversations: The Inaugural Symposium for Emerging Scholars. This is an initiative to recognize and encourage young scholars of exceptional caliber, primarily those currently pursuing their PhDs or advanced graduate studies and those who had their Ph.D. conferred on them within the last five years, who are working on India and China.

China and India in the ASEAN Nexus | Prasenjit Duara
2012-04-26
Prasenjit Duara is a historian of Asia in the twentieth century. Duara was professor and chairman of the History department at the University of Chicago. Duara has spoken as a keynote lecturer or distinguished speaker at over 65 institutions around the world since 1996. His most recent work is The Global and the Regional in China’s Nation-Formation (Routledge 2009). His work has been widely translated into Chinese, Japanese and Korean.Video recording of the speechPresentation by Prasenjit Duara

Music: India in the Caribbean
2012-04-23
“Jahaji Music: India in the Caribbean” A Film Screening and Discussion with Surbahi Sharma Monday, April 23, 2012 – 6:00PM From the mid-19th century, Indian laborers arrived in the Caribbean on boats, bringing a few belongings and their music with them, launching the beginnings of a remarkable cultural practice. This documentary by award-winning director, Surabhi Sharma, follows pop/rock/Indian/fusion recording artist Remo Fernandes as he travels to the Islands to discover the rhythms of India and find potential musical collaborators while weaving a story of memory, identity, and creativity. It is an attempt to make meaning of aspects of contemporary culture in Trinidad and Jamaica even as it is a witness to the nature of possibilities of artistic collaboration.

This feature-length screening will be followed by a discussion with Surabhi Sharma, an independent filmmaker whose work explores a range of subjects from music and identity to labor and globalization and women’s health. Her films have been screened at festivals throughout the world and have received awards at Film South Asia (Nepal); Karchi Film Festival (Pakistan); The Festival of Three Continents (Argentina); Eco-cinema (Greece); and India Documentary Producers’ Association among others. Sharma will also discuss her current work-in-progress, “Bidesia in Bambai,” which focuses on Bhojpuri migrants in Mumbai and themes of migration, music and mobile phones.

Sponsored by Global Studies at The New School in partnership with the India-China Institute, the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, and the Department of Anthropology at The New School for Social Research.

The Political Struggles and Economic Futures in India and China
2012-04-12 18:15 - 19:45
When: Thursday, April 12, 6:15-7:45pm

India China Institute (ICI) and Global Studies program invite you to a public discussion on The Political Struggles and Economic Futures in India and China.The event will be moderated by Prem Shankar Jha, ICI visiting fellow and noted analyst and commentator, and former editor of and contributor to The Hindu,The Hindustan Times, and The Economic Times. In addition to moderating, Prem will discuss the “Politics of Economic Reforms in India and China.”

Distinguished discussants include Andrew Nathan, chair of the steering committee of the Center for the Study of Human Rights and chair of the Morningside Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Columbia. His teaching and research interests include Chinese politics and foreign policy, the comparative study of political participation and political culture, and human rights. Robert Jenkins, the other discussant, is a professor of Political Science at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York. He is also the Associate Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at CUNY.

Andrew Nathan’s discussion, “The Bo Xilai Affair and Beyond”, will focus on Bo Xilai, one of the most important and talked about politicians in China who has recently been removed from his post as the secretary of Chongqing.

Robert Jenkin’s discussion, “Legislating Accountability: Rights and Reform in Contemporary India” , will be focused on current human rights issues in India.

Refreshments will be provided.

Dr. Deepak Nayyar Lecture
2012-04-10 16:00 - 17:45
Paradox of Rapid Growth and Persistent Poverty: India and China
Dr. Deepak Nayyar, distinguished University Professor of Economics at The New School for Social Reearch and Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, will deliver a lecture titled “Paradox of Rapid Growth and Persistent Poverty: India and China”.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Nayyar taught economics at the University of Oxford, the University of Sussex and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He also served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Delhi from 2000 to 2005.

Where: Free admission.

The Politics of Deepening Economic Reform and the Role of the State in China
2012-03-29 17:00 - 19:00
Please join Jean-Francois Huchet of INALCO-Langues’ University in Paris and India China Institute for this event.

While calls in favor of a deepening of economic reforms are increasing both in China and abroad, it is still unclear what will be the content of the economic program of the new team of leaders who will succeed the current CCP leadership next October. Although most of these economic reforms needed to pursue a more balanced growth have been clearly identified (see for example the recent report China 2030 signed jointly by the World Bank and the Development Centre of the State Council), the political conditions for their implementation are still far from being met. Indeed, many of these economic reforms, if they were implemented, would require an evolution of the political framework set by Deng Xiaoping in 1992. Specifically, these reforms would require profound changes of state action in the economy, particularly on issues of public sector, fiscal policies at local government level and the sharing of wealth between capital and labor.

Dressing in a Dangerous World
2012-03-29 13:30 - 2012-03-30 18:00
Dressing in a Dangerous World: Fashion & Politics Workshop

Please join our faculty fellow Dr. LHM Ling and Dr. Hazel Clark on Thursday, March 29 1:30 to 6pm for a workshop on fashion and politics. Below is a short overview of speakers: Introduction – Dr. Hazel Clark, research chair of Fashion, Parsons the New School for Design Being Fab in a Dangerous World – Dr. Andreas Behnke, director of Studies, MA in International Relations Programme, Department of Politics and International Relations, The University of Reading, U.K. Geopolitical Couture Corporealities: Fashion as a Site of Revolution(s) – Dr. Anna M. Agathangelou, associate professor, Department of Political Science and School of Women’s Studies, York University, Toronto, Canada. Anorexia Nervosa Interruptus: Global Fashion for the Local Body – Dr. LHM Ling, associate professor, Graduate Program for International Affairs, The New School for Public Engagement Fashion Statements – Dr. Linda Bishai, senior program officer, Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C. Veil Dressing & the Gender Geopolitics of ‘What (not) to Wear’ – Dr. Marianne Franklin, associate professor and director of the Global Media & Transnational Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London.

Free Admission.“

Lived Religion
2012-02-23
Lang’s Religious Studies program hosted a round table on lived religion, one of the most exciting frontiers of current research and reflection.

Barbra Clayton reported on her field work with a Canadian forestry community seeking to live out a Buddhist environmentalism. Jeffrey Israel explored the importance of humor to lived Jewish ethics in America. And faculty member Mark Larrimore presented examples of creativity and compromise from queer Christian experience in New York City.

Free admission.

India Conversations | Beijing
2012-02-18
India Conversations: Inaugural Interdisciplinary Symposium For Emerging Scholars

On February 18, 2012 an Inaugural Symposium for Emerging Scholars took place in Beijing, China. It was organized by India China Institute, The New School, New York and Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, in cooperation with Horizon Research and Consultancy Group, Beijing. The symposiums was an opportunity for young scholars from around China to share and discuss their work on India, its relations with China, and even on larger South-East Asia issues.

List of presenters by session

Session I – India, China, U.S. relations – Zhang Kuo (School of International Studies, JNU); Li Min (Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences and Nanjing University); Yang Xiaoping (Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies and Fudan University).

Session II – History and Literature – Zhang Jiamei (Depart of South Asia Studies, Peking University); Zeng Qiong (Tianjin Foreign Studies University).

Session III – Economics and Law – Ka-kin Cheuk (Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford); Li Lairu (Yunnan University and CASS); Guo Yukuan (China Research Center for Public Policy).

Session IV – Geopolitical Perspectives – Deng Lan (Center for Trade and Industrial Cooperation Studies, Institute for South Asian Studies, Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences); Song Haixiao (School of International Relations, People’s University).

ERSEH Yale Himalaya Initiative Seminar Series | Spring 2012
2012-01-31
On January 31, 2012, Ashok Gurung and Georgina Drew, the Senior Director of the India China Institute and ICI’s postdoc, will convene a session on ERSEH themes at Yale University with scholars interested in religious studies, environment, and the Himalaya. They will present the problems that motivate the research, the gap in the scholarship that the project helps to address, and the possibilities for future research that it presents. They will also open up to the floor to an equal or greater period of discussion for scholars to respond, give suggestions, and share works-in-progress. The discussion will create a space for knowledge sharing and critical inquiry on new approaches to the study of religion and ecology in regions such as the Himalaya”

Water, Culture, and Climate Change
2011-12-13 18:00 - 20:00
The India China Institute invites you to Water, Culture, and Climate Change, an event that is co-sponsored by the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design. It is part of the ERSEH Initiative. Please join us in the Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, 55 W 13th St, 2nd Floor from 6 pm on December the 13th at The New School.

Rethinking Everyday Religion and Climate Change in the Himalayas
2011-11-15 18:00 - 20:00
India China Institute invites you to Rethinking Everyday Religion and Climate Change in the Himalayas, an event that is part of the ERSEH Initiative. Please join us in the Kellen Auditorium at 66 Fifth Avenue at 6PM on Friday November the 18th.

Arab Spring | American Autumn | Indian Summer
2011-11-14 17:00 - 19:00 | Lang Cafe, 65 West 11th Street First Fl., New York, NY, 10011, USA
India China Institute invites you to a discussion with PREM SHANKAR JHA Prem Shankar Jha is a visiting fellow at The India China Institute at The New School and is perhaps the most well-regarded journalist and author writing in India today. He has contributed to The Economist, the New York Times, and the Financial Express. Jha has held the post of economic editor for the Times of India, and is the former editor-in-chief of the Hindustan Times. What are the lessons to be learned from the Anna Hazare movement for the reform of Indian democracy? 2011 has seen civil rights groups take to the streets in pursuit of democracy in three disparate parts of the world. The largest and most successful by far has been the least reported. This is the Indian civil Society’s six-month-long campaign against corruption in the Indian State. A close examination of the origins, development and eventual success of this campaign reminds us of several basic truths about democracy that have been lost sight of in the recent rush to democratize the world WHEN: November 14th, 5-7 pm WHERE: Lang Cafeteria, 65 W. 11th St. Co-sponsored with the Global Studies Department For more information: www.indiachinainstitute.org

Carol Breckenridge Memorial
2011-11-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Wolff Conference Room, 6 East 16th Street, New York, NY, 10003, USA
2nd Memorial for Carol Breckenridge, former chair of History Department. Speaker: Gayatri Spivak Title: Situating Feminisms in Delhi Date & Time: Monday, November 07, 2011, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Venue: Wolff Conference Room 1103, 6 East 16th Street, 11th Floor Schedule for Lecture Opening Remarks–Tim Marshall In Memory of Carol— Chair, History Department On Gayatri Spivak– by ARJUN APPADURAI

China Conversations: Inaugural Interdisciplinary Symposium for Emerging Scholars
2011-10-31
October 31, 2011, Conference Hall, Second Floor School of International Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University India China Institute at the New School presents the first in a series of global conversations on China and India. This first Symposium will take place in New Delhi, India on October 31, 2011. Schedule: 9:00-9:30 Inaugural Session 9:30-11:00 Session I: “India-China Interactions: Bilateral” 11:15-12:45 Session II: “India-China Interactions: Regional” 14:30-16:00 Session III: “India-China Interactions: Global” 16:15-17:45 Session IV: “State and Society in China” In partnership with the Centre for Policy Research, The Department of East Asian Studies, Delhi University, and the Centre for East Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. For more details contact icisymposium@gmail.com”

UNFOLD: An Exhibition of Artists Inspired by Climate Change
2011-09-29
ICI and The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design invite you to visit

U-N-F-O-L-D An exhibition of artists inspired by climate change

September 29, 2011, 6:30‰ÛÒ9pm: Opening Reception September 30, 2011, 6‰ÛÒ7pm: Conversation with the Curators The exhibition will be on view from September 30‰ÛÒDecember 15, 2011. Open to the public. Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery Sheila C. Johnson Design Center (SJDC) 2 West 13th Street @ Fifth Avenue Featuring artists: Ackroyd & Harvey, Amy Balkin, David Buckland, Adriane Colburn, Sam Collins, Nick Edwards, Leslie Feist, Francesca Galeazzi, Nathan Gallagher, Marjie de Haas, Robyn Hitchcock + KT Tunstall, Ian McEwan, Brenndan McGuire, Daro Montag, MichÌ¬le Noach, Lucy + Jorge Orta, Sunand Prasad, Tracey Rowledge, Lemn Sissay, Shiro Takatani, Clare Twomey and Chris Wainwright. Curated by David Buckland and Chris Wainwright. For more information, please click here.

What is the Relevance of Marxism in the 21st Century?
2011-09-23 12:45 - 14:45
ICI Invites you to a special event with Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, Prime Minister of Nepal, with welcome remarks by David Van Zandt, President of the New School, and discussants: Andrew Arato, Partha Chatterjee, Mary Des Chene, and Sanjay Reddy.

— Background Readings— Video of the Event— Marxism Cannot Die, a Nepali Times article

The Political Power of 'Disorganized Labor' in China
2011-09-13 18:00 - 20:00
Mark Fraizer, the Conoco Phillips Professor of Chinese Politics and Associate Professor of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma, will give a talk about the labor force in contemporary China.

Sponsored by the Department of Politics, New School for Social Research, The India China Institute, and Graduate Program in International Affairs, The New School for Public Engagement

The Bhagavad Gita and Modern Indian Thought
2011-06-06 - 2011-06-07
A conference sponsored by the India-China Institute, the South Asia Forum and the Society for Transnational Cultural Studies The New School, 80 Fifth Avenue, Fifth Floor

June 6

10:00-10:10 Opening Comments

10:10-11:10 Vinayak Chaturvedi, V.D. Savarkar, the Gita, and Histories of Warfare, Discussant: Sunil Khilnani

11:10-11:20 Break

11:20-12:20 Aishwary Kumar, A Finite Touch, Discussant: Shiben Banerji

12:20-13:20 Andrew Sartori, Sri Aurobindo and the Transfiguration of Duty, Discussant: Ritu Birla

13: 30-14:30 Lunch at Cafe Spice, 72 University Place

14:30- 15:30 Faisal Devji, Morality in the Shadow of Politics, Discussant: Akeel Bilgrami

20:00-22:00 Dinner at Borgo Antico, 22 East 13th Street

June 7

10:00-11:00 Shruti Kapila, A History of Violence, Discussant: Faisal Devji

11:00-11:10 Break

11:10-12:10 Chris Bayly, The Bhagavad-Gita: India and the World, Discussant: Arjun Appadurai

12:10-13:10 Mishka Sinha, The Transnational Gita, Discussant: David Armitage

13:30-14:30 Lunch at Bar Six, 502 6th Avenue

Conference: India's World
2011-05-10 - 2011-05-11
