The Mittal Institute’s fall programming spanned some of the most salient issues of the region. From the latest in climate change research; to the changing landscape of architecture; to using literature to advance human rights, our speakers broadened our understanding of challenges and opportunities for South Asia. As we look back on 2023, we curated our favorite event interviews from this past year.
Afghanistan
The Evolution of Afghan Cinema
Scholar-at-Risk Fellows Samiullah Nabipour and Sayed Zubair Hashimi shared a reflection on fleeing their country, and the past and future of Afghan cinema. They also gave a post-event talk after a screening of “A Letter to the President,” a film by Roya Sadat, one of the country’s leading female directors, that explores the difficulty Afghan women face when pursuing justice.
“What makes me optimistic hopeful for the future of Afghanistan cinema is, first of all, that a large number of young people were trained and experienced in the field of cinema during the last 20 years, and they became familiar with the styles and genres of world cinema. They have the ability to make Afghan cinema flourish.”
Read the full interview.
India
Launch of Platform for Climate Change in South Asia
Our faculty hosted a student launch of the Mittal Institute’s climate change platform. Chase Van Amburg ‘24, an Integrative Biology concentrator who specializes in data science with a focus on climate change, shared his project, “Mapping Heat in Microenvironments.”
“This summer project focused on collecting microclimate data on the lives of individuals to begin to gather evidence that weather station data is missing a critical part of the story: climate at the scale of a person, not at the scale of a city.”
Read the full interview.
Artistic Expression, from South Asia to Cambridge
A former cop and an artist who researches illegal wildlife trade: The Mittal Institute was thrilled to host the exhibition of our two new Visiting Artist Fellows, Cop Shiva and Garima Gupta. The artists, both from India, spoke with us in advance of their exhibit where they shared more about their art, their research agendas, and what their hopes were for their time on campus.
“Collaborating with different departments will provide innovative avenues to enhance my work’s impact.”
Read the full interview.
State of Architecture in South Asia
LMSAI’s State of Architecture in South Asia conference brings together architects from the entire region — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan (virtually) — to discuss the work and practice in South Asia. The conference will put theoreticians, academics and practitioners in dialogue with each other, bridging the schism that exists between the academy and practice. Rahul Mehrotra, John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, discussed the conference and his forthcoming book based on the Emergent Practices in South Asia project.
“There will be architects from all the countries in South Asia who will cover an incredible breath of the types of practices we see emerging in the region. We have practitioners who work with the state and others who self-initiate work through community organizing etc. There will be architects who have dedicated decades of their practice in repair of historic environments as well as communities ravaged by conflict and disasters. We will also have practitioners who are curators and researchers and others who are innovators in building techniques.”
Read the full interview.
Tree and Serpent: The Origins of Buddhist Art
The Mittal Institute co-sponsored a two-day symposium surrounding The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibit, Tree and Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE–400 CE. The exhibit tells the story of early Buddhist art through 125 objects dating from 200 BCE to 400 CE. Conceptualized by John Guy, Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of the Arts of South and Southeast Asia in The Met’s Department of Asian Art, the exhibit was a complex logistical exercise, with major loans—of which many are loaned for the first time—from India, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. We spoke with John Guy about the exhibit, and what it took to bring it to the public.
“I think it’s safe to say that this is the largest loan of antiquities from the government of India for a generation … There are serious messages to be taken away from Buddhist teachings, which are central to our welfare and our future.”
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South Asia in Translation: Geography, Memory, and Textuality
Mittal Institute India Fellow Annie Rachel Royson shared the motivations behind the New Delhi office conference, “South Asia in Translation: Geography, Memory, and Textuality.”
“South Asia is a very rich region as far as textual translation is concerned and there are other texts that could be studied to understand the critical relationship between translation, geography, and memory. My faculty mentor at Harvard, Prof. Vidyan Ravinthiran, and I conceptualized this conference as an attempt to bring together scholars who could theorize on this theme from the varied perspectives that the region of South Asia offers.”
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Inequalities in Early Childhood Education in India
Pradeep Kumar Choudhury, the Mittal Institute’s Jamnalal Kaniram Bajaj Trust Visiting Research Fellow, works in the area of applied development economics with a specific focus on education. He spoke with us prior to his seminar on inequalities in early childhood education.
“A wealth of research has demonstrated that investment in the early years of education can have long-lasting benefits for children’s cognitive development … My research at Harvard aims to examine the changing contours of the preschool education market in India.”
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Tamil Author on Lending a Voice to the Voiceless
Dr. P. Sivakami, an acclaimed Indian author who predominately writes in Tamil across many genres of literature, spoke at Harvard in conversation with Professor Martha Selby, Sangam Professor of South Asian Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature Harvard University. P. Sivakami began her career as an Indian Administrative Services officer and later became an author of six novels, four collections of short stories, and many essays and other works of non-fiction. Her first book, Pazhiyana Kazhidalum, was the first novel in Tamil to be authored by a Dalit woman.
“My interest slowly drifted from literature to the living characters/human subjects of my fictions and essays, namely the subaltern women, Dalits, tribals and the transgendered communities … My work set in motion an open dialogue about caste and the problems of untouchability in literature.”
Read the full interview.
West Africa + South Asia
Recalibrating Sustainability: Living with a Changing Climate
The negative effects of climate change, including excessive heat, flash flooding, sea level rise, and increasingly severe droughts, already impact South Asia and West Africa, and are projected to increase in severity and geographic range. LMSAI co-sponsored a workshop on the shared threats that climate change poses in their respective geographies.
Read the full article.