South Asia Program
What Would Paying for Natural Gas in Rubles Mean?
Eswar Prasad, SAP
“Either Putin is getting terrible economic advice or he is going further off the rails in his hatred for the West,” says Eswar Prasad, professor of international trade policy. “It would be cheaper for foreign importers to pay for Russia’s exports in a currency that is collapsing in value, but it is difficult to acquire rubles and make payments in a manner that avoids the sanctions.”
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How "Bridgerton" Touches on Colonialism in India
Durba Ghosh, SAP/PACS
“By casting actors of color, the two seasons of Bridgerton challenge a long-held presumption that those circulating in social circles in Britain were historically white,” says Durba Ghosh, professor of history. “To me, that seems a meaningful way to think about colonialism and racism in 1810s Britain.”
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Threads: Sustaining India's Textile Tradition
April 13, 2022
4:45 pm
Willard Straight Theatre
w/post-screening discussion with Denise Green (Director, Cornell Fashion & Textile Collection) and filmmaker Katherine Sender (Dept of Communication/FGSS)
2022>Directed by Katherine Sender and Shuchi Kothari
Threads: Sustaining India’s Textile Tradition is a documentary film that follows the stories of fashion designers and fabric artisans as they transform traditional textile practices for contemporary fashion markets. After decades of decline in demand for legacy fabrics, these stories demonstrate that committed, collaborative relationships between designers and artisans can innovate traditional practices. We meet Chanderi Master Weaver Bhagwandas who describes how Sanjay Garg (Raw Mango) refined motifs and color in Chanderi weaving. We explore Rahul Mishra’s collaboration with bandhani Master Craftsman Jabbarbhai to innovate tie-dyeing processes in merino wool. We watch Aneeth Arora (Péro) as she works with artisans and craftspeople to modernize traditional silhouettes. And we discover how Rahul and Shikha Mangal (Vrisa) marry handmade with machine-made processes to sustain artisans and appeal to contemporary consumers. The film features interviews with designers in Delhi and Jaipur; hand weavers in Chanderi, 350 miles south of New Delhi; bandhani tie-dyers in Bhuj, in India’s north west; and block printers near Jaipur in Rajasthan. The clothes they produce appeal to an increasingly affluent Indian middle class and global diaspora by using textiles that reference traditional techniques in a contemporary way. Threads argues that sustainability involves more than environmental stewardship and improved economic circumstances for workers: Designers and artisans collaborate in ongoing creative relationships to reinvigorate both traditional textile techniques and the communities who produce them.
In English, Gujarati, Kutchhi, and Hindi.
58 minutes
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Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
South Asia Program
Pebbles
April 17, 2022
7:00 pm
Willard Straight Theatre
2021 > India > Directed by P.S. Vinothraj
With Chellapandi, Karuthadaiyaan, Philip Arulodss
"India's nominee for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars is P. S. Vinothraj's first feature, set in a remote Tamil Nadu village, where a rage-filled man uses his young son as a pawn to force his estranged wife to return. Vinothraj films their journey in elaborately nuanced detail and dramatizes women's and children's sly and bold forms of resistance to patriarchal violence." (Richard Brody, The New Yorker) Subtitled.
1 hr 15 min
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Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
South Asia Program
Writing Sri Lanka graduate student conference
April 23, 2022
9:30 am
Kahin Center
The recent arrests and detentions of Sri Lankan writers, bloggers and poets form part of a long history of extrajudicial detention which elucidates the ever-present stakes of writing about Sri Lanka, or simply Writing Sri Lanka. This graduate student conference aims to collectively reflect on how these stakes surface in Sri Lanka Studies research, regardless of genre or discipline. Who wields the power to determine which writings about Sri Lanka are legitimate and authentic? Who determines which writings are benign to the state and which writings pose a threat? Under what circumstances are some writings deemed dangerous or illicit, in the guises of patriotism, security, or even the global war on terror? What power do words have—whether in literature or academia, across different languages and genres—to question, critique, and surpass how the state and any other institutions draw and enforce these distinctions?
Panel 1: Writing the Sri Lankan Nation
A Comparative Analysis of the Coverage of Rabindranath Tagore’s third Trip to Ceylon in 1934
Chamila Somirathna, Sinhala, University of Kelaniya
Resisting the Spectacular: Ethical Approaches to Engaging the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami
Soraya Zarook, English, University of California, Riverside
Queer Voices in Post-War Transitional Sri Lanka
Thiyagaraja Waradas, Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath
Discussant: Anindita Banerjee, Comparative Literature, Cornell University
Panel 2: Writing Sri Lankan History
“Harmful” Genres in Sri Lankan Literary History: Revisiting Martin Wickramasinghe’s Bavataraṇaya
Crystal Baines , English, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
From Kavikāra to Folk Singers: Sinhala Nationalism and the Folklorisation of Kavi
Tom Peterson, Music, SOAS, University of London
Discussant: Viranjini Munasinghe, Anthropology, Cornell University
Co-sponsored by the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies
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Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
South Asia Program
Emerging Markets Will Trade More Directly Using Their Own Currencies, says Professor
Eswar Prasad, SAP
Eswar Prasad, professor of international trade policy, discusses why emerging markets will move away from using the dollar as an intermediary currency.
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Why China Won't Get Dragged Into Russia's War on Ukraine
Allen Carlson, CMSP/EAP/SAP
“On the world stage, China appears to be the only friend that Russia has left. But it would be a mistake to overstate the strength of such seeming Sino-Russian friendship,” says Allen Carlson, associate professor of government. “President Xi Jinping is highly unlikely to allow China to get dragged into the conflict through providing direct military support to Russia.”
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With War in Ukraine, Fed's Game Plan for Rate Hikes Faces New Challenges
Eswar Prasad, SAP
“The war and its spillover effects substantially intensify the conundrum the Fed already faced about how aggressively to tighten [policy],” says Eswar Prasad, professor of international trade policy. “It’s a tough call.”
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China Has Tools to Help Russia's Economy. None are Big Enough to Save It.
Eswar Prasad, SAP
“China will not save the sinking boat of the Russian economy,” says Eswar Prasad, professor of economics and international trade policy. But, he says, China could “perhaps allow it to float a little longer and sink a little more slowly.”
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What Would Be the Impact of a US 'Digital Dollar'?
Eswar Prasad, SAP
Eswar Prasad, professor of international trade policy, says, “The overwhelming dominance of the dollar gives the US the luxury of learning from... other countries.” Similar mention can be found in The New York Times and Yahoo! Money. Prasad also discusses US regulation of digital assets on CNBC.