MESAAS Department Colloquium

April 19, 4:10pm, 208 Knox Hall

Prof. Alan Verskin, MESAAS

"Hijra (sacred migration) in the
Maghribi legal tradition."

Paper available in the MESAAS Office. Please join us from 4:10 - 6 pm for discussion.

MESAAS Department Colloquium

March 29, 4:10pm, 208 Knox Hall

Lena Meari, Center for Palestine Studies, Columbia

"Sumud:
A Philosophy of Confronting Interrogation in Colonial Palestine."

Paper available in the MESAAS Office. Please join us from 4:10 - 6 pm for discussion.

MESAAS Department Colloquium

March 8, 4:10pm, 208 Knox Hall

Prof. Guy Leavitt, MESAAS

"Instructive Paradigms: The Narrative
Poetics and Cosmology of Time in the Valmiki-Ramayana."

Paper available in the MESAAS Office. Please join us from 4:10 - 6 pm for discussion.

MESAAS Department Colloquium

Feb. 16, 4:10pm, 208 Knox Hall

Prof. Najam Haider, Religion, Barnard College

"Identity Formation and Sacred Spaces in Early Shi'ism"

Paper available in the MESAAS Office. Please join us from 4:10 - 6 pm for discussion.

MESAAS Department Colloquium

Feb. 2, 4:10pm, 208 Knox Hall

Prof. Fran Pritchett, MESAAS

"Ghalib and his commentators: With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

Paper available in the MESAAS Office. Please join us from 4:10 - 6 pm for discussion.

MESAAS Department Colloquium

Dec. 8, 4:10pm, 208 Knox Hall

Prof. Gil Anidjar, Religion and MESAAS

"Yet Another Abraham"

Paper available in the MESAAS Office. Please join us from 4:10 - 6 pm for discussion.

MESAAS Department Colloquium

Nov. 10, 4:10pm, 208 Knox Hall

Prof. Rachel McDermott, Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures, Barnard College

"Revelry, Rivalry, and Longing for the Goddesses of Bengal."

The celebration of the Sakta Pujas to Durga, Jaggadhatri, and Kali certainly predates the arrival of European merchant-traders and colonialists in Bengal, but not by a great deal. One could in fact argue that it was the presence of the British that provided the initial impetus for the festivals' development into the characteristic forms we see today, with goddesses worshiped in temporary temples, or pandals, placed to the side of public urban thoroughfares. This chapter covers the entire period of British rule in Bengal - from the mid-eighteenth century until 1947 and beyond - illustrating the history of English-Indian relations in miniature, through the lens of the Pujas. How did the various, and changing, British attitudes toward Indians, Bengalis, Hindus, Muslims, festivals, rulership, and intercommunity mixing affect their perspective on the Pujas? And how did Bengali choices regarding Puja sponsorhip and organization reflect their views of British suzerainty in Bengal?... That there was never one monolithic "British" perspective on India, or one "Hindu" response to it, is amply demonstrated by a glance at the developmental history of the Pujas. There is one constant, however, and that is the Janus-faced nature of the Puja symbol, which always looks both ways, reflecting to its British and Indian interpreters what is opccurring in the public, political, and interethnic spheres.

This is a chapter from Prof. McDermott's new book on the Bengali Goddess festivals (2011). Please join us from 4:10 - 6 pm for discussion.

MESAAS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM

"Portrait of a Raja in a Badshah's World: Amrit Rai's Biography of Man Singh (1585)."

Prof. Allison Busch
October 6, 4 pm 208 Knox Hall

Archival Anthropology

The book is about Shari`a texts in Yemen in the first half of the twentieth century under the last of the Zaydi imams. It is also about issues of textuality and methods of reading. This excerpt is taken from the end of the second chapter, so it comes after the book's general introduction and also after I have elaborated my conceptions of the "library" and the "archive," which refer to cosmopolitan versus contingent texts. The excerpt opens with two vignettes from my early research in the highland town of Ibb.

Prof. Brinkley Messick
Anthropology and MESAAS
September 15, 4 pm 208 Knox Hall

Oct 6: Prof. Allison Busch, MESAAS, "Portrait of a Raja in a Badshah's World: A Sixteenth-century Biography of Man Singh"

Oct 20: Prof. Mahmood Mamdani, MESAAS, "Beyond Nuremberg: Learning from the South African Transition"

Nov 10: Prof. Rachel McDermott, Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures, Barnard College, "Revelry, Rivalry, and Longing for the Goddesses of Bengal"

Dec 8: Prof. Gil Anidjar, MESAAS, "Yet Another Abraham"

Feb. 17: Ben Talton, "Hunger is a Weapon : Human Rights and U.S. Politics in the Horn of Africa"

Feb. 3: Jinny Prais, W.Virginia University.When Night Falls in Accra: African Representations of the Urban Environment and Social Relations. This paper considers the ways the educated urban community of Accra (colonial Ghana) imagined their city within the spaces of their newspapers and dance halls within the confines of the African-owned press of the 1930s.

October 28: Mamadou Diouf Ideas of Africa and the African Presence in the World in the Early 20th Century.

November 18: Partha Chatterjee (CU) The Happiness of Mankind and the Pedagogy of Violence

December 9: Dr. Stefano Pello (Visiting Professor MESAAS/Venice University, Italy) Textual Mirrors and Aesthetic Lenses: The Philology of the Self in 18th Century Indo-Persian Memorialistic Writings