| Skip to main content | Skip to navigation | Skip to Search |

[University home]

School of Arts, Histories and Cultures

ECMSAS Accepted Panel Suggestions 1 to 8

To view details of papers, please click on the title of the panel you are interested in.  For further information, please contact the panel convenors directly, using the mail address(es) listed under each panel.

Panel 1

Name 1: PD Dr. Juergen Wasim FREMBGEN
Name 2:  Dr. Nadeem Omar
 Affiliation 1: Museum of Ethnology Munich, University of Munich (Institut of Religious Studies)
Affiliation 2: University of Manchester
Panel Title: Popular visual Cultures in South Asia Abstract: How to read popular culture in view of the immense presence of images and commodified objects on the subcontinent? This panel is intended to search for answers by discussing various genres of everyday visual cultures, such as "popular art", "street art", "subalten art", "folk art", "children art" and other dimensions of material culture. Thus, the focus could be, for instance, on devotional objects, commodities, graphic design, recycling as well as on more "traditional" expressions of visual culture. It will be important to address and debate questions of context, function, use, meaning, aesthetics and perception. Within the postcolonial discourse, notions of representation, identity, memory or consumerism could be investigated. Furthermore, contributors could problematise questions of status and power as well as the importance of practice, for instance reflected in the social reality of shared traditions within the Hindu-Muslim interface. In this way papers may reflect the diversity and complexity of contemporary visual cultures.
Email 1: JSFrembgen@t-online.de
Email 2: notarar@gmail.com

Panel 2

Name:  Prof Parul Dave Mukherji  
Affiliation: School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Panel Title:  Art History after Independence: South Asian Reconfigurations
Abstract: Art history after Independence: South Asian reconfigurations
The colonial inflections of Art History in South Asia - with its roots in imperialism and a culture of loot - is by now well-known. In contrast, this panel seeks to trace genealogies of the art historical discipline in the various South Asian nation-states over the decades following their Independence - a thematic that has started receiving attention only recently. Teasing out the overlaps between Art History, Museology, and Archaeology in this period, the panel aims to engage with the ways in which Art History and aesthetic discourses were mobilized to formulate/contest postcolonial nationalisms, regionalisms, and identity politics. This focus on the political, we hope, will allow for an understanding of the modes in which art, aesthetics, and their histories informed, motivated, and helped manufacture knowledge, tradition, and culture.

With the full understanding that the trajectories of Art History in the various regions of South Asia are often in conflict, (being animated by its specific dynamics) we see this panel as a platform to bring to the fore these multiplicities in order to gain a broader understanding of the discipline as it developed in this region. The panel therefore invites proposals engaging with the multiple lineages and usages of Art History in the post-Independence nation-states of South Asia that continue that inform their contemporary cultural politics.

Email:  paruldm@icenet.net

Panel 3

Name: Deborah Sutton 
Affiliation: Lancaster University
Panel Title: Colonised Antiquity: Archaeology and South Asia's Material Past
Details:  This panel will examine archaeological practice in modern South Asia. Archaeologists in British India had a considerable remit including the 'discovery', acquisition and ordering of diagnostic, material typologies; the design of new monuments built to commemorate British conquest; the invigilation of structures designated as 'protected' by the state and the orchestration of a material past for public consumption. The proposed panel will depart from existing research which tends to focus on institutional and personal biographies in order to draw together new perspectives and in particular to emphasise local social histories; the ambivalences and the contestations of archaeological and conservationist interventions. How can the mediation and contestation of the 'voice' of antiquity be used to think about themes of knowledge and authority in colonial and post-colonial South Asia?

The aim of the panel is to bring together scholars working on the history of archaeological practice in South Asia, broadly defined, and will invite contributions on archaeological interventions from before and after independence. Panel contributions could include work on:

Email: d.sutton@lancaster.ac.uk

Panel 4

Name:  Andrea Major
Affiliation: University of Edinburgh
Panel Title:  Slavery and the Raj: Representing unfree labour in colonial South Asia Abstract:  With attention focused firmly on the 200th anniversary of the aboilition of the trans-atlantic slave trade in 2007, other manifestations of slavery and slave trading in the colonial period continue to be largely ignored.  This panel will seek to redress this balance by exploring issues of unfree labour in colonial South Asia.  The eastward trade in African slaves, internal domestic slavery, the traffic in women and children and sexual slavery, as well as other forms of restricted labour, such as debt bondage, indenture, convict or coolie labour, are all possible areas for a discussion which will focus on the conceptual problems of discussing unfree labour in the South Asian context.  In particular it will focus on issues of representation, exploring how British and Indian depictions of Indian slavery impacted on understanding the nature of the institution, blurring the boundaries between slavery, kinship, caste, indenture and other forms of labour, as well as the political, economic and ideological imperatives that informed the representation of South Asian slavery as qualitatively different to its trans-Atlantic counterpart.
Email:  amajor@staffmail.ed.ac.uk

Panel 5

Name: Shweta Sachdeva
 Affiliation: SOAS, University of London
Name: Indira Vishwanath Peterson
Affiliation: Mount Holyoke College
Panel Title:  Gender and Performance in Princely India: New Perspectives
Abstract: Much scholarship on the princely states has
focused on debates surrounding the British exercise of 'paramountcy', and the perceived strengths and weaknesses of Indian rulers vis-a-vis their political relationship with the British.  In contrast, the intertwined institutions of palace and durbar that constituted the princely courts, and which continued to fulfill important cultural, social, political and economic roles throughout the colonial period, have received relatively scant attention.  We propose to explore the princely states as sites of courtly practice and performance, where costume, etiquette, ceremony, shikar and music acquired new meanings as signifiers of courtly culture that were distinct from those of their pre-colonial predecessors.  Using gender and performance as our primary modes of enquiry, we will try to see how the courtly cultures of princely states in southern, central and northern India responded to, and negotiated their status within, the novel opportunities and constraints arising from the British exercise of 'indirect' rule over princely India, and the impact of the British presence in colonial India more broadly.
Email :  shweta_sachdeva@yahoo.com

Panel 6

Name 1: Christian Wagner
Name 2: Ummu Salma Bava
Affiliation 1: German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin, Germany
Affiliation 2: Centre for European Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Panel Title:   Indian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century: Prospects and Challenges Abstract: India's foreign policy is undergoing fundamental changes. On the one hand the liberalisation of 1991 has yielded high growth rates so that India today is regarded as another economic powerhouse in the global economy besides China. At the same time, India's economic attractiveness has increased her global visibility and role, this is underlined by the strategic partnership agreements for instance with the United States, the European Union (EU), France, Russia, and Japan. On the other hand, India's new global role is constrained by among other factors, the growing economic interdependence most obvious in the rising energy dependence. These developments question traditional paradigms like the concept of an independent foreign policy that seems no longer adequate in a globalised and interdependent world. The panel offers the opportunity to discuss the new developments in India's foreign policy from different theoretical angles.
Email 1: christian.wagner@swp-berlin.org
Email 2: usbava@gmail.com

Panel 7

Name 1:  Dr. Willem van Der Geest
Name 2:  Dr. Mobasser Monem
Name 3:  Dr. Golam Hossain
Affiliation 1: Visiting Professor, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Affiliation 2: Professor, Department of Public Administration, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Affiliation 3: Professor, Department of Government and Politics, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Bangladesh.
Panel Title: The Political Economy of Bangladesh
Abstract:  The panel will bring together young as well as established scholars with an active research interest in political and economic developments in Bangladesh and their implications for its relations within South Asia and globally. Presentations within the broad themes of government and governance at the national, district and urban/rural levels as well as within specific sectors such as health, education, export industries, public administration etc. are particularly welcome. The panel also seeks to analyse the interactions between external actors (multilateral institutions, development finance institutions, donors, foreign investors) and domestic actors (state and non-state) in terms of political and economic motivations and interests and how these determine the outcomes and impacts of these interactions.
Email 1:  willemvandergeest@yahoo.com

Email 2:  mobasser2000@yahoo.co.uk
Email 3:  golamhossain@yahoo.com

Panel 8

Name 1: Ananya Mukherjee 
Name 2:  Dr. Daniel Rycroft 
Affiliation 1: University of Reading
Affiliation 2: University of East Anglia
Panel Title:  National parks & Landscapes of Resistance in South Asia Abstract: Modern National Parks in South Asia have become a hot-bed of struggle between the resident indigenous people and those in conservation. There is and always has been a discrepancy in the exclusionary approach of conservationists creating 'Little Islands of Conflict' in and around these national parks. Given the intricate indigenous attachment to natural lands and forests as part of their identity and culture, the isolation of these people from their former homeland led to considerable outbursts among the people. Some which are violent and some are quiet forms of resistance. Pro-human conservationists have constantly argued that total isolation of indigenous communities can be more harmful in terms of protecting wildland spaces. However, the pitfalls remain owing to the gap between the understanding of the conservationists and those who are pro-human activists in favour of creating a harmonious relationship between nature and indigenous people. This debate has constantly fascinated academia and has been studied by students in anthropology, sociology, geography and development studies including environmental historians. Papers are invited from those in the above-mentioned disciplines related to conflicts in conservation and management of national park areas in South Asia.
Email 1: a.mukherjee@reading.ac.uk

Email 2:   
| Skip to main content | Skip to navigation | Skip to Search |