START
Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 06:00pm
END
Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 07:30pm
Deruralization: The Modernist City in the Age of Globalization
Vikramāditya Prakāsh, Professor of Architecture; Adjunct Professor of Landscape Architecture, Adjunct Professor of Urban Design and Planning; Director, Chandigarh Urban Lab, University of Washington
Chair: Rahul Mehrotra, Professor of Urban Planning and Design and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design
START
Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 06:00pm
END
Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 07:30pm
Decoding Dhaka
Farooq Ameen, Principal, City Design Studio
Chair: Rahul Mehrotra, Professor of Urban Planning and Design and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design
The city of Dhaka is one of the largest, most dense urban masses in the world. Its population is projected to reach 20 million by 2015, and its land is projected to be mainly under water by 2050. Its location on a delta with pockets of land enclosed in pockets of water has led to great urbanization challenges – Dhaka’s city planners must wrestle with where and how to build residential and industrial structures responsibly to meet the needs of this precarious urban situation.
Farooq Ameen of City Design Studio in Los Angeles shared some of the current interventions that are underway to deal with mobility among the disjointed sectors of the city, to integrate natural elements into building projects, and finally, to protect the heritage sites of old Dhaka that are quickly being encroached upon. He also spoke about the difficult administrative and political hurdles to initiating further urban improvements in Dhaka.
Professors and students inquired as to whether any similar interventions have been made in the areas of public health, sanitation and climate change, and whether or not wealthy inhabitants of the city felt any particular stake in these issues when it comes to helping direct resources. Farooq remarked that some NGOs have been involved in these efforts, and that climate change is starting to enter the public discourse, but very slowly. Sahjabin Kabir, Architect in Bangladesh and current GSD student, remarked that there is no public awareness about these issues among anyone in the city – rich or poor. Awareness must be raised so that the government can be held accountable for the decisions it makes.
Written by Deonnie Moodie, PhD Candidate at GSAS
Video of the event:
START
Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 04:00pm
END
Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 05:30pm
Chaired by Asad Ahmed, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University
Yasmin Saikia, Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies, Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict; Professor of History in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Arizona State University
The scholarship on post-conflict resolution is growing and the new questions and discourses on peacemaking forefront non-western perspectives. Although the earlier focus of scholarship on the usefulness of truth and reconciliation commission, war criminals tribunal, implementation of human rights and international monitoring remains relevant, there is also a need to move beyond these existing models to explore the alternative indigenous language of justice derived from other sources, such as religion and culture. This exercise is particularly relevant in the context of postcolonial South Asia where religion and ethnicity have played divisive roles in enabling violence.
In this paper, I focus on the memories of survivors – victims and perpetrators – of the 1971 war of Bangladesh raising fundamental questions of peacemaking from an Islamic perspective. Highlighting the historical construction of an ‘enemy’ that was victimized during the war, I probe perpetrators’ understanding of violence that is differentiated from “duty” and the religious grammar of peace that suggests an alternative thinking beyond violence. Paying particular attention to the concept of insāniyat, humanity, that survivors recall was lost in violence, I examine what perpetrators deem gunah (sin) and their desire to do tauba (repent) for delivering insāf (justice). Emphasizing survivors’ renewed humanistic understanding based on religion, I ask: In what ways can survivors’ alternative discourses open the space for dialogue for writing larger histories of peace in the region? Can the religio-cultural vocabularies of repentance, tauba, and principles of justice, insāf, based on the concept of haqq (rights) serve for peacemaking between Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India? Is religio-cultural method of peacemaking relevant and useful for restorative justice of huquq al-ibād, rights of people? What are its implications for decolonizing the notions of justice and rights in the subcontinent?
Co-sponsored with the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University
START
Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 04:15pm
END
Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 05:45pm
Naveeda Khan, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University
Co-sponsored with the Harvard Asia Center as part of their Islam in Asia Seminar Series
START
Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 07:00pm
END
Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 09:00pm
Cultural/Social Events, Global Health, South Asia Without Borders, Urbanization, _temp, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
South Asia: The World’s Laboratory
A special SAI event in New York City. Inquire for details:sainit@fas.harvard.edu
Home to nearly a sixth of humanity, the birthplace of many of the world’s great religions and philosophies, and now a hotbed for innovation and technological change, South Asia is truly the world’s laboratory, a space where we can experiment with the world’s most urgent challenges. Join leading academics from Harvard University in a discussion of the timely appeal of South Asia to the humanities—at the intersection of religion and civil society, ancient arts and cutting edge technologies. Our guest speakers will challenge you – Is Pakistan really Islamic? The Taj Mahal: What’s the Attraction? – and share with you the latest research and inquiry on South Asia from Harvard.
START
Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 05:30pm
END
Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 08:30pm
Ontorjatra (‘The Inner Journey’) is a 2006 Bangla film exploring complex issues of identity and dislocation in a diaspora world. A divorced mother and her son return to Bangladesh after 15 years in London after the ex-husband’s sudden death and funeral. The story follows the transforming experience of the mother and son as they come to terms with this loss. For the British-bred son with no memory of his father or “homeland”, the return is a journey of rediscovery and self-actualization. For the mother the journey is a mixture of anxiety in anticipation of a difficult reunion and nostalgia for her youth. By the directors who brought Matir Moina “The Clay Bird” that won several awards among Cannes Film Festival. This film screening is open to the public.
START
Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 04:00pm
END
Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 05:30pm
The Harvard University Asia Center and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University present a forum on
The United States in Asia: Five Media Perspectives
With the participation of Nieman Fellows from Asia
Moderated by Arthur Kleinman, Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University and Professor of Medical Anthropology in Global Health and Social Medicine and Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.
Wu Nan, The Wall Street Journal (China)
Rema Nagarajan, The Times of India (India)
Akiko Sugaya, Journalist and “Media Education” Author (Japan)
Pir Zubair Shah, The New York Times (Pakistan)
John Nery, Philippine Daily Inquirer (the Phillipines)
Co-sponsored by the South Asia Initiative, the Fairbank Center, and the Reischauser Institute
START
Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 04:00pm
END
Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 06:00pm
Amartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University
Anthony Lake, UNICEF Executive Director
Facilitated by Jacqueline Bhabha, Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Lecturer in Law, Harvard Law School and Lecturer on Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Sponsored by the FXB Center at Harvard, co-sponsored in part by SAI
START
Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 05:30pm
END
Thu, Jul 18, 2013
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam is a based on a Bengali novel by Bimal Mitra, providing a glimpse into the fall of feudalism in Bengal during the era of the British Raj. The film explores a platonic relationship between the lonely and beautiful wife of an aristocrat and a hard-working, part-time servant. The film has been rated among the top Bollywood movies ever produced and has won four Filmfare Awards. Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam features starts Guru Dutt, Meena Kumari, Rehman, Waheeda Rehman, and Nasir Hussain. Please join us for an evening of colorful music and classic Hindi film. This film screening is open to the public.
START
Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 04:00pm
END
Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 05:30pm
Faith, Loyalty, Status: Mughal-era Perspectives on Elite Rajput Conversions to Islam
Chaired by Parimal Patil, Professor, Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University
Ramya Srinivasan, Associate Professor, South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Co-Sponsored by the Department of South Asian Studies.
START
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 04:00pm
END
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 05:30pm
Harlem, Black Bottom, Tremé: South Asian Muslims in U.S. Communities of Color, 1890-1965
Vivek Bald, Assistant Professor of Writing and Digital Media, MIT
Chair: Parimal Patil, Professor of Religion and Indian Philosophy, Chair of the Department of South Asian Studies
Vivek Bald is a scholar and filmmaker whose work focuses on histories of the South Asian diaspora. His current project traces the lives of South Asian Muslim silk peddlers and merchant seamen who settled within communities of color in the U.S. South, Northeast, and Midwest in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is the basis for a forthcoming book, Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America (Harvard University Press, 2013), and a documentary film, In Search of Bengali Harlem.
Watch the video here:
▶
Harlem, Black Bottom, Tremé: South Asian Muslims in U.S. Communities of Color, 1890-1965 from The South Asia Initiativeon Vimeo.
START
Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 04:00pm
END
Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 05:30pm
Vernacular Political Economy in Colonial Bengal
Andrew Sartori, Associate Professor of History, New York University
Chair: Parimal Patil, Professor of Religion and Indian Philosophy, Chair of the Department of South Asian Studies
Bengali agrarian politics of the late colonial period turned to a very great extent on debates over property. To make sense of the emergence of this kind of agrarian politics (which could be variously articulated in terms of the aspiration to “Muslim emancipation,” “cultivator rights” and “tenant rights”) requires an account of the process by which political-economic concepts were vernacularized in the Bengali countryside in the later nineteenth century.
