Events
SAP hosts a weekly seminar series. For the Spring 2024 semester, we are hosting in-person events, typically at 12:15 pm Mondays in G08 Uris Hall. All events are open to the public. All times Eastern (New York) Time.
Videos of many past events are available on our YouTube playlist.
Our annual Tagore Lecture in Modern Indian Literature, now held in the spring, features an author from South Asia or its diasporas. We also partner with Cornell student organizations to bring South Asian musicians, dancers, and other artists for campus performances.
Upcoming Events
6:00 pm
Virtual
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…
12:15 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Talk by Rohit Lamba
India has a remarkable digital infrastructure, a burgeoning demographic dividend, a stable democracy, a high-performing high-tech services sector, a learned and arguably well-meaning elite, and a phenomenally successful diaspora. There is also rising interest in the West to diversify…
12:15 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Talk by William Lodge, II (Public Policy, Cornell University)
This presentation delves into the intersectional and syndemic barriers affecting HIV care among transgender women and Hijras (TGW) in India. Drawing on findings from a multi-method study conducted in Mumbai and New Delhi, the talk illustrates how…
12:15 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Talk by Sohini Chattopadhyay (History, Union College)
In May 1939, a 20-year-old man died in Bombay’s suburb of Vile Parle. He was a migrant worker, often without a home, and Dalit. His friends took his body to a cremation ground, but only by trespassing it at night since Dalits were not allowed access to…
5:00 pm
Virtual
The Amit Bhatia ’01 Global PhD Research Awards fund international fieldwork to help Cornell students complete their dissertations. Through a generous gift from Amit Bhatia, this funding opportunity annually supports at least six PhD students who have passed the A exam. Recipients hold the title of Amit Bhatia ’01…
12:15 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Talk by Pinky Hota (Anthropology, Smith College)
The Violence of Recognition explores the roots of ethnonationalism conflict between two historically marginalized groups—the Kandha, who are Adivasi (tribal people considered indigenous in India), and the Pana, a community of Christian Dalits (previously…
4:45 pm
Virtual
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports U.S. citizens to study, conduct research in any field, or teach English in more than 150 countries. Students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year. Recent graduates are welcome to apply through…
12:15 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Talk by Rajbir Judge, (History, California State University)
How do traditions and peoples grapple with loss, particularly when it is of such magnitude that it defies the possibility of recovery or restoration? Rajbir Singh Judge offers new ways to understand loss and the limits of history by considering…
12:15 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Talk by Abdul Haque Chang (Social Sciences, Institute of Business Administration, Karachi)
This talk shows how in Sindh, the state of environmental exception has become the norm for governance (as in Agamben's formulation regarding the suspension of law). Specifically, this state of exception refers to…
12:15 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Talk by Prashant Kidambi (History, University of Leicester )
Cantonments were a ubiquitous symbol of the military origins and underpinnings of British rule in South Asia. This talk, based on new research, seeks to rethink existing approaches to the study of cantonments. It critiques perspectives that view…
12:15 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Talk by Shozab Raza (Anthropology, University of Toronto)
In recent years, we have seen renewed efforts to “decolonize.” From the toppling of statues to the revision of disciplinary canons, much of this effort has focused on overturning colonial residues in our cultural and epistemological landscapes. This…
12:15 pm
Uris Hall, G08
My book, Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment (2021), explored ethnographically, the various ways in which Indian scientists lived their religious and scientific lives. In this lecture, I attempt to examine conversations and debates from the early days of space science in India by examining how…
12:15 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Talk by Ghazal Asif (Anthropology, Lahore University of Management Science)
For the past decade, the press in Pakistan has remained rife with stories of the kidnapping, forcible conversion to Islam, and marriages of young Hindu women at the hands of Muslim men. Women’s rights and minority advocacy groups…
12:15 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Talk by Amanda Lanzillo, (History, University of Chicago)
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, laborers across northern India found themselves negotiating rapid industrial change, emerging technologies, and class hierarchies. In response to these changes, Indian Muslim artisans asserted the…
12:15 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Talk by Zehra Hashmi (History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania)
This talk examines how and why Pakistan’s national biometric-based identification regime came to use an individual’s blood relations to construct and track uniquely identified individuals. Through the concept of datafied…