Celebrate the start of the school year with the Mittal Institute over chai and snacks! Learn from our team about the work that the Mittal Institute is doing in South Asia and the numerous funding opportunities available, interact with various Harvard South Asia student groups, and meet with other Harvard students who are interested in South Asia!
Misaq-e-Ishq means The Covenant of Love and during this event Ali Asani ’77 (professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures at Harvard); Pakistani pop star and author Ali Sethi ’06; and vocalist, guitarist and Grammy Award-winning producer Noah Georgeson will bring alive through musical performance, the poetic consciousness of several legendary South Asian mystic poets.
As part of the Nepal Studies Program, Professor Michael Witzel from Harvard University will lead a conference titled “Hinduism in Nepal: The Ritual Dimension.” Ritual has played a major role in Hindu societies, from the Vedas to modern times, and it has been particularly prominent in Nepalese society. It accompanies individuals from morning until night, from birth to death, and it shapes the customs of society throughout the year. This conference will explore some of the rituals, past and present, that are typical for Nepal. Stress is put on the extensive documentation that has been carried out over the past few decades, with a particular focus on fire rituals.
Engaging with India: Engaging with Feminism and the Passion of “The Before Midnight’s Children”
Speaker: Devaki Jain, Economist, Writer, and Recipient of the Padma Bhushan Award
The Harish C. Mahindra Lecture Series is given in honor of the late Harish C. Mahindra, a distinguished alumnus of Harvard College and a visionary leader of business and industry in India. The lecture is an important component in continuing the education and understanding of the challenges facing South Asia, and provides an ideal forum for the next generation of global leadership.
This year, Devaki Jain will be giving the Mahindra Lecture. Devaki Jain is an Indian economist and writer who has made significant contributions to feminist economics, social justice, and women’s empowerment in India. In 2006, she was awarded the Padma Bhushan — the third-highest civilian honor from the Government of India — for her contributions to society. In this lecture, she will weave her own personal story into the political story of India and discuss her engagement with public life, activism, and her current work in feminist economics.
A reception will follow the lecture. This event is free and open to the public.
Amar Kanwar (b. 1964) is a New Delhi-based filmmaker and artist whose work has powerfully mined the potential of a slower, drifting method of moving image to forge a politically charged and engaged mode of gently expanded cinema. Kanwar’s critically acclaimed yet fiercely debated Such a Morning hovers on the border between magical realist allegory and slow cinema trance film with an almost Calvino-like fable of a renowned mathematician impulsively abandoning his university post, without explanation, to hibernate in a train car abandoned deep in a lush forest.
Amar Kanwar presents an artist talk. The following evening on Friday, April 19, 7 pm, Such a Morning will be screened at the Harvard Film Archive.
Both Amar Kanwar programs are presented in collaboration with The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard Film Archive, Film Study Center, and The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University.
In this event, Professor Ashu Varshney, Ronak Desai, and Hasit Shah will discuss the pressure points of the upcoming Indian election.
Speakers:
Ashu Varshney, Director of the Center for Contemporary South Asia and Sol Goldman Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Ronak Desai, Vice Chair of the Indian Practice at Steptoe and Law & Security Fellow at New America
Hasit Shah, Journalist and Expert on Digital Media and Internet Access in India
The show features two artists from Pakistan and India who reflect on the impact of The 1947 Partition of British India in their works. Mahboob Jokhio and Krupa Makhija explore the interplay between culture, language and identity through a deeply personal lens.
The 1947 Partition of British India displaced millions of people along religious lines and led to the creation of two new countries: Pakistan and India. In this exhibition, Mahbub Jokhio and Krupa Makhija, the Mittal Institute’s Spring 2019 Visiting Artist Fellows reflect on the impact of the partition. Their work explores the deeply personal issues of culture, language, and identity in the region.