The Cornell-Syracuse South Asia Consortium presents a symposium interrogating the histories and trajectories of anti-Asian violences.

The recent surge of racially motivated attacks on Asians in the United States brought renewed attention to the issue of anti-Asian violence. It is necessary to situate this rising tide of violence in the broader histories that have produced it. By taking up “Asia” as a fraught geopolitical category that is formed through imperialist projects, this symposium attends to the underlying logics of violence that are crucial to rendering these histories legible. Building connections that are enabled by transnational, relational, and critical lenses not only will deepen insights into the discourse of anti-Asian violence, but also will allow a meaningful consideration of the implications of this moment for solidarity and movement- building. This symposium will convene a cohort of scholars, students, and activists whose work can collectively help trace the genealogies and geographies of anti-Asian violence.

The South Asia Program is coordinating efforts for current Cornell students, faculty and staff to travel to and from Syracuse for this event on Friday March 25. Please fill out this form by March 18 if you are interested in a ride (or are able to offer others a ride) to and from Syracuse for the symposium. Space is limited.

220 Eggers Hall (Strasser Legacy Room), Syracuse University

Roundtable: Queering Solidarities: Race, Caste, and Gender

Chris Eng (Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Washington in St. Louis)
Sangeeta Kamat (Professor, Comparative and International Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
William Mosley (Assistant Professor, Program for Interdisciplinary Humanities, Wake Forest University)
Esther K. (Red Canary Song Collective)
Discussant: Viranjini Munasinghe (Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Cornell University)

Panel: Cripping Violence, Indigeneity and Pedagogy: Global Perspectives

Juliann Anesi (Assistant Professor, Gender Studies, University of California, Los Angeles)
Deepika Meena (Research Scholar, IIT Gandhinagar)
Edward Nadurata (Graduate Student, Department of Global and International Studies, UC Irvine)
Discussant: Michael Gill (Associate Professor, Cultural Foundations of Education, Syracuse University)

Panel: Transnational Asia: Feminist & Decolonial Critiques

Juliana Hu Pegues (Associate Professor, Literatures in English, Cornell)
Danika Medak-Saltzman (Assistant Professor, Women's and Gender Studies, Syracuse University)
Deepti Misri (Associate Professor, Women and Gender Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder)
Discussant: Mona Bhan (Associate Professor, Anthropology and Ford-Maxwell Professor of South Asian Studies, Syracuse University)

Closing Keynote

Iyko Day, Mount Holyoke College
“Nuclear Antipolitics and the Queer Art of Logistical Failure”

CO-SPONSORED BY:

At Cornell University: South Asia Program, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, East Asia Program, Southeast Asia Program, and Asian American Studies Program

At Syracuse University: Graduate School, Humanities Center, Hendricks Chapel, Department of Cultural Foundations of Education, Department of English, Department of Religion, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, East Asia Program, Asian/Asian American Studies Program, Disability Studies; Disability Cultural Center, Intergroup Dialogue, and Democratizing Knowledge Collective

With funding from the Department of Education Title VI Program.

FACULTY CO-ORGANIZERS:

Susan Thomas, Cultural Foundations of Education, Syracuse University

Antonio Tiongson, Department of English, Syracuse University

Talk by Sharif Hozoori

Analyzing the situation of Afghanistan, its past struggle and instability, war and displacement, peace and conflict, scholars would argue that the external forces and power politics are influential and effective in articulation of events but the current research highlights a different scenario by proposing the role of political elites in bringing changes to the political environment. However, such change has a profound effect on domestic and foreign policy transformation as well. This study deals with the role of political elites in the changing domestic politics and transformation of foreign policy of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2014. It deals with two concepts: the political elite disunity and the political elite consensus. Accordingly, it tries to explain the two regimes: the Taliban’s first theocratic regime (1996-2001) and the democratic establishment after 2001. This study looks to answer that how political elite disunity contributed to the instability of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 which led to civil war and Islamization of foreign policy and how elite settlement and elite consensus led to democratic political establishment, domestic stability and caused for inclusionary foreign policy initiative post 9/11 in Afghanistan.

Sharif Hozoori is originally from Afghanistan. He holds PhD in International Relations from Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (CIPOD), School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His PhD thesis entitled Role of Political Elites in Foreign Policy Transformation: A Case Study of Afghanistan from 2001-2014. Mr Hozoori has earned his Master degree in International Relations from Department of International Relations, South Asian University in New Delhi. His dissertation was Radicalization of Muslims in South Asia: Implication for regional security. Upon his return to Afghanistan in 2019, He started teaching both in undergraduate and post graduates. At the same time, he has done administrative works as he was Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs of Afghanistan University until recently before leaving the country in August 2021. Currently Mr. Hozoori is the IIE-SRF fellow and visiting scholar at South Asia Program, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Cornell University. His area of research is Afghanistan politics and foreign policy, ethnic identity, South Asia politics, cultural studies and conflict resolution and peace.

Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India

The ethos of innovation and entrepreneurship, honed in high-technology firms, has colonized philanthropy, development projects, government policies, and even thinking about international diplomacy. Innovation competitions, hackathons, and corporate mythologies around figures such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs proliferate optimism that passionate dreamers can change the world. But do entrepreneurial approaches to innovation really serve social needs? In this talk, I trace the history of this entrepreneurial form of citizenship in India, from colonial times to the present. I offer case studies that demonstrate how innovation needs to change to prioritize the needs of people over elite companies and institutions. This talk is drawn from my book Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India (Princeton University Press).

Lilly Irani is an Associate Professor of Communication & Science Studies at University of California, San Diego. She also serves as faculty in the Design Lab, Institute for Practical Ethics, the program in Critical Gender Studies, and sits on the Academic Advisory Board of AI Now (NYU). She is author of Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India (Princeton University Press, 2019) and Redacted (with Jesse Marx) (Taller California, 2021). Chasing Innovation has been awarded the 2020 International Communication Association Outstanding Book Award and the 2019 Diana Forsythe Prize for feminist anthropological research on work, science, or technology, including biomedicine.

2021 > Denmark > Directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen
With Daniel Karimyar, Farhan Karimyar, Fardin Mijdzadeh
Amin arrived in Copenhagen as a teenage refugee from Afghanistan under the Taliban. Now, 20 years later, he relates his story to director Rasumussen as he struggles with secrets from his past on the brink of marrying his boyfriend, in a stunning animated documentary which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. The film has been shortlisted for both Best International Feature and Best Documentary Feature Oscars. Subtitled. More at www.fleemovie.com
1 hr 30 min

This is the second day of a two-day virtual workshop on peacebuilding, climate change, and migration. The first day of the workshop is March 22, 2022; participants are welcome to attend for just one or both days.

On this second day, we will examine understudied regions which are at substantial risk of climate change impacts, including Latin America, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. What resources, methods, and approaches can help us better understand the relationship between peacebuilding, climate change, and migration in these understudied regions? How can we achieve environmental justice in these areas?

The first day of the workshop is March 22, 2022.

WORKSHOP AGENDA

Introductory reflection
Karim-Aly Kassam
International Professor of Environmental and Indigenous Studies, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment & the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University

Dr. George Wilkes
Director, Religion and Ethics in the Making of War and Peace Project
Research Fellow, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh

Presenters
Alpa Shah
Professor, Department of Anthropology, The London School of Economics and Political Science

Jonathan Padwe
Associate Professor and Undergraduate Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Fábio Zuker
Journalist, Anthropologist, and Amazon Rainforest Journalism Fund Grantee

This workshop is being organized by Cornell University’s Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, with support from the Migrations Initiative, and co-sponsorship from the Institute for African Development, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, the South Asia Program, the Southeast Asia Program, and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

This is the first day of a two-day virtual workshop which takes a novel approach to peacebuilding, climate change and migration. The first day of the workshop is March 22, 2022; participants are welcome to attend for just one or both days.

On this first day we will explore the following questions: What do we know about the relationship between peacebuilding, migration, and climate change? How can we develop a socio-environmental conception of positive peace, which entails developing means of peacefully resolving conflict, and which centers Indigenous perspectives and environmental justice?

The second day is March 24, 2022

WORKSHOP AGENDA

Introduction
Rebecca Slayton, Director, Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, Cornell University
Associate Professor, Department of Science and Technology Studies

Rachel Beatty Riedl, Director and John S. Knight Professor of International Studies, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies
Professor, Department of Government, Cornell University

Presenters
Marieme Lo, Director, African Studies Program
Associate Professor, Women and Gender Studies, University of Toronto.

Päivi Lujala, Professor of Geography and Academy of Finland Research Fellow
Geography Research Unit, University of Oulu, Finland

Noor Ahmad Akhundzadah, Dean and Professor of Environmental Science, University of Kabul, Afghanistan
Visiting Professor, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment & the South Asia Program, Cornell University

This workshop is being organized by Cornell University’s Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, with support from the Migrations Initiative, and co-sponsorship from the Institute for African Development, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, the South Asia Program, the Southeast Asia Program, and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Are you interested in the intersection of mental health and culture, global health, and community engagement? Do you want to gain field research skills and learn about indigenous communities in South India’s beautiful and fragile Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve? If so, the Cornell-Keystone Nilgiris Field Learning Program might be for you! Join Faculty Director, Andrew Willford, and the Office of Global Learning to learn more about the Cornell-Keystone NFLP Summer Program in India!

Are you interested in the intersection of mental health and culture, global health, and community engagement? Do you want to gain field research skills and learn about indigenous communities in South India’s beautiful and fragile Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve? If so, the Cornell-Keystone Nilgiris Field Learning Program might be for you! Join Faculty Director, Andrew Willford, and the Office of Global Learning to learn more about the Cornell-Keystone NFLP Summer Program in India!

The Lingua Mater competition invites students to translate Cornell's Alma Mater into a different language and submit a video of the performed translation. The inaugural Lingua Mater student competition took place in 2018 as part of Cornell's Global Grand Challenges Symposium. The top three videos received cash prizes.

2022 competition details

Can you translate Cornell’s Alma Mater into your mother tongue (or a language you are learning/have learned at Cornell) and sing it? We invite you to translate “Far Above Cayuga’s Waters” and submit a video of you (and your friends!) performing it somewhere on any of Cornell’s campuses.

Translations do not need to be exact or perfectly in meter but should capture the feel and tune of our university’s Alma Mater. As is customary, include the first verse, refrain, second verse, and refrain in your video submission (for guidance, listen to a performance and read the lyrics).

Video submissions need to be MP4 files at 1920 x 1080 (1080p), in landscape mode with an aspect ratio of 16:9. Please ensure that you have copyright permission for any images/videos you use.

Entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges. Submissions will be judged equally on the translation, the musical quality, and the creativity in visual presentation.

The top three entries will win cash prizes.

Winners will be announced during International Education Week (November 14-18, 2022) and the top three videos will be posted online that week.

Entries may be submitted by any registered Cornell student or group of students.

Submission deadline: Sunday, November 6, 2022

SUBMIT YOUR VIDEO AND LYRICS HERE

Please contact Angelika Kraemer, Director of the Language Resource Center, if you have any questions.

The Lingua Mater competition is co-sponsored by the Language Resource Center and the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs.