April 18th , Noon - 1pm

"Muslim Women and Divorce in India: Some Practical Implications of Legal Pluralism in the Sphere of Family Law"

• Lecture Series: "Role of Law in Developing and Transition Societies"

Professor Sylvia Vatuk, Professor Emerita, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago

Location:TBA

Modern Asian Studies

Special Issue of "Modern Asian Studies"

The special issue is devoted to Islamic reform in South Asian and is a who's who of your fellow BASAS members. Click here for a copy of the cover.

March 29-30th, 2008

South Asian Studies Association Conference Program

Conference Program

The 2008 conference program is available on the conference website. Click here for the program page.

Pre-Conference Event

Friday evening, March 28th, Pitzer Colleges, one of the Claremont Colleges, will present a free evening of classical Indian ragas.
8:00 PM, Bridges Hall of Music, Fourth Street, east of College Avenue on the Pomona College Campus.
Information about the performers, David Trasoff, sarod and Abhiman Kaushal, tabla, can be found on their website Click here

Student Admission

Again this year we have been asked to permit undergraduates to addend at a reduced rate. Professors in Southern California may choose to offer "extra credit" for attending one or more sessions. The registration rate will be $7 for one day or $10 for both days. This covers attendance at panel sessions only. Upon request we will cooperate with area professors by providing sign-in sheets.

More on Spam Blockers

Approximately half of our email data base is blocked by university spam filters, making it difficult, time consuming and costly to communicate. If you have an address that you have full control over, please enter it on the link at our website. At the moment this is akin to asking students to raise their hand if they are absent. But if your university's decides to impose additional restrictions we still can reach you.
http://www.sasia.org/

September 8th and 9th 2008

Venue: Durham

Call For Papers - Please send abstracts to saag2008@googlemail.com by end of March
more info...

South Asian societies are all caught up in the experience of fundamental change. Processes of change entail communicative orders of persuasion and appeal, and rely on crafts of making social projects and intentions publicly compelling, whether in terms of economic globalisation, civil conflict, new information technologies, political systems, the mobilisation of ethnic and religious communities, or the creation of norms of gender, family and kinship. The move within anthropology to consider rhetoric is not to oppose it to 'reality', but to see its penetration in all social action. Distinct choices and preferences are made in the interpretation of any state of affairs, and in setting the scene for appropriate opinions to be formed. Rhetoric brings possibilities for considerable nuance in treatments of agency, as actions are picked up by others, translated into the terms of reference of diverse subject positions, and carried forward in ways that are not always foreseeable to the initiator. Rhetoric operates at different scales of applicability and inclusion, and in South Asia can be particularly sensitive to marking thresholds of collective imaginaries through language, expressive ritual, and narratives of region, kinship, and difference. Bringing attention to rhetorics of change in South Asia is intended to shed light on how people make things happen, and to enable creative thinking about the ways in which understandings and identifications are made tangible and convincing.
more info...

2007-2008 Amrit Kaur Ahluwalia Memorial Outstanding Paper Prize

The Center for South Asia Studies welcomes entries for its 2007-2008 Amrit Kaur Ahluwalia Memorial Outstanding Paper Prize for work that addresses some aspect of Sikhism: Sikh history, language and literature, religion, culture, art or music. The deadline for the paper prize is March 20, 2008. Winners will be contacted and prizes will be announced by April 11, 2008.

The prize will be awarded at the annual Amrit Kaur Ahluwalia Memorial Lecture to be held on April 19, 2008 at UC Berkeley. The amount of the award will be $500.
More Information

12th Summer Program in Punjab Studies

The program will provide six weeks of instruction in Punjab Studies. The work includes the learning of Punjabi (50 hours), and history and culture of the region (90 hours). The goal of the program is to impart substantial academic information about the history and culture of the region and provide an environment for discussion and exploration.

The program is open to both graduate and undergraduate students. Special requests from independent scholars are also considered; they are welcome to use the infra-structure of the program and make use of its activities while pursuing their own research projects. The expense for each participant is $2,750, which includes instruction, room and board shared with another person, and travel within the Punjab. (If a participant needs a single room that can be arranged for an extra fee of $400). Meals on the weekends are the responsibility of the participants. Limited financial assistance is available for citizens of the United States. Please send the application along with a fee of $100 to the address below. The application deadline is March 3, 2008, and the selection process will be completed by March 17.
More Information

The Everest Peace Project

A multi-cultural, multi-faith team worked together as one unit to summit Mount Everest in May 2006 and now you can be a part of the most breathtaking views from the top of the world

The Everest Peace Project is an organization that consists of individuals who have come together to promote peace, teamwork, and cultural understanding. The Everest Peace Project is not a religious organization nor does it have any political agenda. Our mission is to inspire and to show that people from diverse cultural backgrounds and faiths can unite together as friends and accomplish incredible things.
More Information

 

January 21, 2008-Applications Received

Academia in the Public Sphere: Islam and Muslims in World Contexts

The SSRC is pleased to announce a new small grants program to support Title VI funded National Resource Centers on U.S. campuses for expanding their outreach activities on the theme of "Islam and Muslims in world contexts." All NRCs interested in addressing this theme are eligible to apply regardless of their regional focus. Attached please find the Request for Proposals. Tom Asher, Program Officer at SSRC, is available to answer questions. He can be reached at asher@ssrc.org.
More Information

February 1, 2008 -Deadline

Graduate Pre-Dissertation Travel Awards

CSA Graduate Pre-Dissertation Travel Awards are intended to assist currently enrolled University of Wisconsin-Madison Ph.D. students with preparation for field research related to their dissertation on a topic related to South Asia. It is expected that these awards will be used prior to completion of prelims. Awards will range from $500 to $1,000. There is no established minimum or maximum number of awards per year. The number of awards and the amount of individual awards will be determined by the annual review committee.

Application packet should include:
1. A 1-page description of your dissertation project. This statement should clearly articulate the goals and expected outcomes of the pre-dissertation travel. Please also describe how your study will benefit the general field of South Asian studies as a whole.
2. A letter of recommendation from your advisor
3. A detailed budget including the cost of round-trip travel, on-site lodging, daily per diem, etc.

Submit your application to: Center for South Asia, 203 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706. Applications must be received in 203 Ingraham Hall no later than 4 p.m. on February 1.

 

February 2, 2008 - Fellowship Date

SSRC Pre-Dissertation Research Funding Summer 2008

Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF)
http://programs.ssrc.org/dpdf/

The Social Science Research Council, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, provides fellowships up to $5000 to humanities and social science students to support predissertation research. In addition to recieving funding, fellows participate in two four-day workshops organized around the research fields and that bracket the summer research. Workshop exercises prepare fellows in formulating doctoral dissertation proposals that are intellectually pointed, amenable to completion in a resonable time frame, and competitive in future dissertation research fellowship competitions. Workshops will be held May 29 - June 1 in Saint Louis and September 11 - 14 in Milwaukee. Travel, lodging and meals for the two workshops are provided by the SSRC
more info

 

15-17 May 2008

Third Tamil Studies Conference, University of Toronto

The American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies (AISLS) will make a travel grant of $300 to any graduate student who gives a paper or acts as a discussant concerning Sri Lanka at the Third Tamil Studies Conference, University of Toronto, 15-17 May 2008. Applicants must have been individual members of the AISLS since 1 November 2007, or be enrolled at an institution that is a member of the AISLS. Individuals living in the Toronto metropolitan area at the time of the conference are not eligible. Eligible individuals whose papers have been accepted for the conference program should contact the AISLS treasurer, Caitrin Lynch. treasurer@aisls.org Payment will be by post the week after the conference. AISLS also plans to assist graduate student attendence at the 2009 Tamil Studies Conference.