LMSAI’s Scholars in Residence: Spring 2023
The Mittal Institute presents its Spring Fellows and Visiting Artist Fellows.
Category : News
LMSAI New Delhi Office Abuzz with Activity over Winter Break
The Mittal Institute’s New Delhi Office was a beehive of activity over winter break, playing host to two separate major events: an interdisciplinary conference on indigeneity and a celebration of LMSAI’s past year and new focus on climate change.
Pakistani Artist Komal Shahid Khan Reflects on Her Work & LMSAI Fellowship
Komal Shahid Khan, based in Islamabad, Pakistan, was a Visiting Artist Fellow at the Mittal Institute in 2016. She received a master’s in fine arts from the Fatima Jinnah Women University in Rawalpindi, Pakistan with a specialization in miniature painting and was awarded a Gold Medal for her thesis show. After graduating, she started her career with a focus on group shows in art galleries in Islamabad/Rawalpindi and later moved to Lahore and Karachi. She also taught at the National College of Arts Rawalpindi, Pakistan, as a Lecturer. In 2016, she held her first solo exhibition titled “Imagined Immortals” in Karachi, Pakistan. We caught up with Komal to learn more about life after her LMSAI Fellowship.
LMSAI Faculty’s Winter Break Collaborations in South Asia
Over Winter Break, some of our LMSAI faculty set off for teaching, collaboration and learning experiences in South Asia. They kept in touch with the Mittal Institute during their travels, and sent us photos of their time abroad. We curated some of our favorites,...
Interrogating the Indigenous of Northeast India: Previewing the January Conference
On Tuesday, January 17 the Mittal Institute will host the “Interrogating the Indigenous in Northeast India: Political Movements, Cultural Poetics, and the Performative Capital” conference, which will trace “indigenous” as a historical category, investigating the ways in which the indigenous question has become a shared language of social critique in Northeast India. The conference will begin with a keynote lecture on “Indigeneity and Contemporary Northeast India: History and its Contingencies” by Professor Arupjyoti Saikia, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati. We spoke with conference convener Ankur Tamuli Phukan, Mittal Institute India Fellow based in our Delhi office. He shared the motivations behind the conference, and what he hopes attendees can glean from the panel discussions.
The Mittal Institute’s Highlights of 2022
2022 Highlights SANDERS THEATRE ROCKS IN CELEBRATION OF 75 YEARS OF AZADI LMSAI KICKS OFF ITS CLIMATE CHANGE FOCUS WITH HARVARD GRANT WELCOMING MONIKA SETIA AS INDIA ASSOCIATE COUNTRY DIRECTOR ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM CELEBRATES THE MAKING OF MODERN SOUTH ASIA LAUNCH AND...
From Afghanistan to Bhutan to Sri Lanka: Features from Across South Asia in 2022
The Mittal Institute has been working hard to expanding our programming and events to cover the regional depth and breadth and geographical reach of South Asia. In this look back on 2022, we rounded up our favorite interviews and stories with Mittal faculty, students,...
LMSAI’s Winter Reading Recommendations
As winter descends on Cambridge’s skies, our thoughts turn to novels read by the comfort of roaring fires. Nothing completes a holiday season more than a good book—so we turned to our community of faculty, fellows and students for their help in curating a list of Holiday Reading Recommendations. They shared their favorite South Asian authors; their most inspiring reads; and what they hope to cozy up with this holiday season.
LMSAI Hosts Full-house Conference on Pakistan at 75
This week, the Mittal Institute held a two-day conference that brought together 45+ speakers from across the globe, including remarks by Ambassador Sardar Masood Khan and a keynote by Justice Qazi Faez Isa of Pakistan’s Supreme Court. The event was spearheaded...
GSA Spotlight: Nusrat Jahan Mim on Designing in Urban Bangladesh
Nusrat Jahan Mim, a Mittal Institute Graduate Student Associate, is a Doctor of Design candidate at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Her research focuses on post-colonial, post-secular urban designs and human-computer interaction. By examining existing systems, she explores how different spatial and technical designs challenge or propagate social exclusions in the Global South. She is a Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative Fellow for the academic year 2022-23. Prior to Harvard, she won the prestigious AIA Henry Adams Medal from Syracuse School of Architecture for achieving the highest academic rank in M.Arch. The Mittal Institute also profiled her work on makeshift cattle markets in Dhaka in a September 2021 newsletter. We spoke with Nusrat to get an update on her work and new GSA role.
LMSAI Delhi Office Welcomes Monika Setia as Associate Country Director
We are pleased to welcome Monika Setia as she joins the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute as Associate Country Director in the India office. Monika will assist with building bridges between Harvard and India related to research in and about the region. She will play an instrumental role in increasing LMSAI’s presence in India through coordination with stakeholders in the region. Monika will also be working closely with the Harvard LMSAI office to support Harvard faculty visiting India, building partnerships with academic institutions and support ongoing Harvard faculty research and all endowed fellowships.
Understanding the World Through Art: Explore Vaishnavi Patil’s Research
Vaishnavi Patil, one of the Mittal Institute’s new Graduate Student Associates, is a doctoral candidate in Harvard’s History of Art and Architecture department working on South and Southeast Asia. Vaishnavi received her B.A. in Ancient Indian History and Culture from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and an MA in History of Art and Archaeology from SOAS, London. She was a Yenching scholar at Peking University, China, receiving an MA in China Studies. In addition to her studies, Vaishnavi has participated in numerous internships, including curatorial training at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Harvard Art Museums.
Vaishnavi is interested in studying female deities, especially mother goddesses, and how production, patronage, and development of religions play a role in the evolution of the mother goddess in South Asia. She is also interested in the text-to-image relationships in South Asian art, particularly the literal and the symbolic in the illustration of a text. Other areas of interest include popular practices, marginalized deities, depiction of evil, and gender issues. Her current research aims to analyze the origins and development of the cult of the mother goddess in South and Southeast Asia, particularly her representations and the popular practices centered on her.