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Category : Announcements

The Nepal Mandala’s Place in South Asia

Dec 12, 2019 | Announcements, Faculty, Nepal, News

The Nepal Mandala’s Place in South Asia

Symposia dedicated to the art and culture of early modern Nepal come around only once in a generation. And the atmosphere at the Nepal Mandala in an Early Modern South Asia symposium last week, run by Jinah Kim (Harvard University) and Todd Lewis (College of the Holy Cross), reflected the rarity of this meeting. The symposium brought together international experts on the history, culture, and societies of the “Nepal Mandala” — or the Kathmandu Valley — to present papers on the region’s place in early modern South Asia.

Dipti Sherchan: The Emergence of a One-of-a-Kind Nepali Art School

Dec 5, 2019 | Announcements, Nepal, News

Dipti Sherchan: The Emergence of a One-of-a-Kind Nepali Art School

This week, the Nepal Mandala Symposium will take an in-depth look at Nepal’s artistic heritage, its place in Asia’s artistic ecosystem, and the continuing practice of Indic Buddhist traditions. Dipti Sherchan, a graduate student at the Department of Anthropology in the University of Illinois at Chicago, will join the panel “Nepal Mandala in the Intra- and Trans-Regional Context.” We sat down with her to learn more about her expertise in the anthropology of state and art, and the emergence of the Juddha Kala Pathshala art school in Nepal — a unique and one-of-a-kind cultural institution in Kathmandu.

Unveiling the Voices of Women and Marginal Characters in the Mahabharata

Dec 5, 2019 | Announcements, Faculty, News

Unveiling the Voices of Women and Marginal Characters in the Mahabharata

Earlier this week, we were joined by Karthika Naïr, author and poet, for an in-depth discussion on her latest book, Until the Lions. In the book, Naïr retells the story of the Mahabharata through the embodied voices of women and marginal characters. In conversation with Professor Parimal Patil, Professor of Religion and Indian Philosophy at Harvard University, and with the audience, Naïr brought these voices to life.

Kushagra Nayan Bajaj: Newest Member of the Mittal Institute Advisory Council

Nov 21, 2019 | Announcements, Arts Program, News

Kushagra Nayan Bajaj: Newest Member of the Mittal Institute Advisory Council

The Mittal Institute is pleased to announce its newest donor, Kushagra Nayan Bajaj, an Indian businessman who is the Chairman of the Bajaj Group, the Chairman and Managing Director of Bajaj Hindusthan Limited, and Chairman of Bajaj Corp Limited. His support will create a new, upcoming visiting research fellowship at the Mittal Institute to deepen the teaching and research on significant cultural issues related to South Asia. We spoke with him to learn more about his background and his interest in the Mittal Institute.

Book Workshop Builds Opportunity and Community for Junior Scholars

Nov 21, 2019 | Announcements, Faculty, Fellows, News, Students

Book Workshop Builds Opportunity and Community for Junior Scholars

Recently, the Mittal Institute hosted a book workshop with Dr. Mariam Chughtai, Babar Ali Fellow at the Mittal Institute and Associate Dean and Assistant Professor at the LUMS School of Education in Lahore, Pakistan, to curate feedback on her manuscript currently in progress. In a book workshop, a professor hosts a junior scholar and invites other senior scholars from the relevant field to come together and provide feedback on the junior scholar’s developing book manuscript.

An Expanding Network Brings Eye Care to Rural Indian Communities

Nov 21, 2019 | Announcements, In Region, India, News, Social Enterprise

An Expanding Network Brings Eye Care to Rural Indian Communities

The latest inauguration ceremonies of two Prakash Vision Centers (PVCs) in Brahmpur and Pali blocks of Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, were recently held in late October. These vision centers have been established under the project “Multidisciplinary Approach to Innovative Social Enterprises” with support from the Mittal Institute and Harvard Global Research Support Centre in India. More than a hundred people from the neighboring villages attended the ceremony, which featured special guests Rinku Yadav, the Village Pradhan of Lalapur village in Brahmpur Block, and Brijil K. Mathew, Manager of Eye Care Services at Fatima Hospital in Gorakhpur. Fatima Hospital is a charitable hospital with a well-appointed ophthalmic division that has partnered with Project Prakash to provide medical treatment to patients referred from PVCs for specialized care.

Naveen Bharathi: Fractal Urbanization and Residential Segregation in Liberalizing India

Nov 14, 2019 | Announcements, Fellows, India, News

Naveen Bharathi: Fractal Urbanization and Residential Segregation in Liberalizing India

Each year, the Mittal Institute welcomes a new Raghunathan Family Fellow to support recent PhDs whose research lies in the humanities and social sciences related to South Asia. Naveen Bharathi, the Mittal Institute’s 2019-20 Raghunathan Family Fellow, comes to Harvard with a breadth of experience as an architect, planner, and researcher of political sociology and political economy of identity in India. Most particularly, his research explores the relationship between ethnic diversity and development in contemporary urban India.

Jinah Kim: Nepal’s Artistic Heritage and Buddhist Rituals

Nov 14, 2019 | Announcements, Arts Program, Faculty, Nepal, News

Jinah Kim: Nepal’s Artistic Heritage and Buddhist Rituals

Co-curated by Dr. Jinah Kim, Professor of History of Art & Architecture at Harvard University, and Dr. Todd Lewis, Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at College of the Holy Cross, the Dharma and Punya: Buddhist Ritual Art of Nepal exhibit at the College of the Holy Cross’s Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery highlights Nepal’s artistic heritage as a rich and enduring continuation of Indic Buddhist traditions. From December 5–7, 2019, the Nepal Mandala Symposium will bring together scholars of religion, anthropology, and art history whose work examines critically various aspects of Nepal’s culture and history, culminating in a visit to the exhibition. We sat down with Dr. Jinah Kim to learn more about Nepal’s artistic heritage, the role of ritual in Buddhism, and what to expect from the upcoming Symposium and exhibition.

A Tale of Three Cities: Agrarian-Urban Transformation in Western Maharashtra

Nov 7, 2019 | Announcements, Faculty, India, News

A Tale of Three Cities: Agrarian-Urban Transformation in Western Maharashtra

“If we look at some of the most contentious land conflicts over the past decade, we realize that the new economic corridors are not anachronistic to the agrarian countryside. Instead, they accrete onto former agricultural modernization programs of the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution helped consolidate … provincial propertied classes — and these agrarian propertied classes are at the forefront of these corridor conflicts,” said Sai Balakrishnan, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, in her talk this week on economic corridors in India and the infrastructural urbanizing development projects that come with them.

Looking Back at the 1947 Partition Through Personal Stories

Nov 7, 2019 | Announcements, In Region, India, News, Partition

Looking Back at the 1947 Partition Through Personal Stories

Most personal accounts of what had transpired during the weeks before and after August 1947 are handed down as inter-generational knowledge. And yet, given the traumatic uprooting and violence of the event, there remains a palpable silence around stories relating to violence against or loss of family members. As a third-generation member of a family that had witnessed the Partition of British India in 1947, I grew up listening to stories full of paradoxes. The stories of my grandparents were replete with instances of compassion between individuals and families despite the raging madness that prevailed throughout the larger community.

Investigating the Sounds of India’s Rural and Urban Spaces

Nov 6, 2019 | Announcements, In Region, India, News, Students

Investigating the Sounds of India’s Rural and Urban Spaces

My main goal was to examine the production of religious sound in a variety of settings, with an eye toward the social demarcation of “spaces” around the sites of these sounds. Of course, this originally led me to the kinds of places that one would obviously expect: shrines, churches, gurdwaras, masjids, a few Buddhist monasteries, and so on. After listening to most of the field recordings I made, they all seemed to end up pointing to the sort of conclusions that are common in the literature on sound studies in urban spaces: people go about their business within their particular location-bound social milieu, but sound bleeds over.