Spring Lecture Series 2011
Thursday, January 20: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Spring Welcome Party!
Thursday, January 27: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
John Peters
Director, UW Soil Testing Laboratories and Extension Soil Scientist
Audio Download
Public/Private Partnerships in India: An Agricultural Model to Enhance Rural Prosperity
The project has the following objectives: (1) to raise yields
in high value vegetables and milk production; (2) to strengthen farmers’
links to output markets and input suppliers; and (3) to increase human
resource capacity by training farm-level advisers, laboratory technicians,
and management.
The partners are, alphabetically:
- Agricultural Consultancy Management Foundation (an NGO operating
demonstration farms and outreach activities);
- Mahindra and Mahindra (leading tractor and implement producer;
over 1000 outlets in India);
- Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (mobilizing women’s self help groups);
- Tasty Bite (India’s largest exporter of prepared foods);
The project was designed to build the technical expertise needed to
run over one hundred soil testing laboratories located at Mahindra
and Mahindra tractor dealerships as well as with ACMF. This is
supplemented by developing the capacity to advise farmers on best practices
for crop production. The project is also designed to build the
technical capacity of dairy and crop advisers working with women’s
self help groups in Uttar Pradesh. This would include the Rajiv
Gandhi Charitable trust staff as well as the Community Resource Persons
working directly with the women milk producers. Tasty Bite operates
its own farm and also buys from district farmers to supply its processing
plant in Maharashtra. Tasty Bite's goal was to use their land
as a demonstration farm and base for outreach to the district farmers. This
project gives assistance to Tasty Bite in upgrading the farm and establishing
demonstration plots to help bring improved production practices to
area farmers.
John Peters is the Director of the UW Soil and Plant Analysis Laboratory
and UW Soil and Forage Analysis Laboratory and conducts research and extension
programming in the areas of diagnostic services, soil fertility and liming,
manure analysis, and land application of waste materials. For twenty-one months
during 2009-2010, John served as Chief of Party of a USAID funded agricultural
development project in India.
Thursday, February 3: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Randall Law
Honorary Fellow, Anthropology, UW-Madison
Audio Download
Preliminary geologic assessments of rock-cut temples and cut-stone monuments in South India
After a decade spent in Pakistan and northwest India doing intensive
research into the rock and mineral trade networks through which Bronze
Age Harappans acquired raw materials for small portable items like beads,
Randall Law has embarked on a new study of stone at Historic Period rock-cut
caves and cut-stone temples in South India. This research is part of a
larger NEH-funded project directed by art historian Vidya Dehejia and sculptor
Peter Rockwell that is examining the unfinished aspects of these monuments.
As a supplement to this project, Law's task was characterize the rock types
into which and/or from which the monuments were created, to assess material
quality from place to place and, where needed, to identify stone sources.
Thirty locations (archaeological sites and stone quarries) within the southern
Indian states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu were visited and
sampled in January of 2010. The analysis of these materials is only partially
complete. In this presentation, Law will provide an overview of the geology
of the study area and main types of stone examined in it, briefly discuss
the evaluation and sampling of rocks from monuments and quarries, and give
a site-wise summary of the observations and analytical results generated
to date.
Thursday, February 10: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Henri Schildt
Honorary Fellow, Center for South Asia, UW-Madison
The Māṭakkōvil Shrine Type in Kerala
This paper presents two Kerala māṭa-k-kōvil-type shrines: the Māṭattilappan
shrine of the Peruvanam Śiva Mahādēvan temple (District Trichur) and the
Śiva temple of Paṟampantali (near Guruvayoor, District Trichur), both dating
to the late 11th or early 12th century. The essentials of the two stuctures
of a square plan are a high monolithic ground floor provided with a monumental
stair before the western first-floor entrance. The first-floor square sanctum
houses a Śiva Liṅga. The second and third floors are blind square and octagonal
chambers without entrances, forming in both cases a sequence from the square
plan to the octagonal. In the Kerala temple architecture, the māṭa-k-kōvil
shrine appears to be a shrine type for a Śiva Liṅga. Its origin is in Tamilnadu
where it can also house images of Viṣṇu. The Malayalam term māṭa-k-kōvil
consists of two parts: the māṭam, a storied house and the kōvil a temple.
In the paper the three examples of Kerala māṭa-k-kōvils from central Kerala
are compared to six Tamil māṭa-k-kōvils in Tirunelveli District.
Dr. Henri Schildt is currently a Honorary Felllow in The Center For
South Asia in University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also an Associate Professor
in the Department of World Cultures, University of Helsinki (Finland). He
is running a project titled "Peruvanam Śiva Mahādēva Temple" financed by Academy
of Finland.
Thursday, February 17: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Narendra Subramanian
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, McGill University
Audio Download
Nation and Family: Personal Law, Cultural Pluralism, and
Gendered Citizenship in India
The recognition of difference in religious
personal law is in tension with aims to reduce inequalities, promote individual
liberties, limit and change the public roles of religion, and treat various
religious groups similarly. Discourses salient among ruling elites
(specifically, nationalist discourses, understandings of religious and other
cultural traditions, and visions of the forms of modernity appropriate for a
society) and features of state-society relations (the social bases that
governing elites have and aim to build) influence how states address these
tensions. The inclination of the majority of India¹s political elites to build
broad social coalitions, and to modernize society in ways that accommodated the
important roles of religion, ethnicity and the joint-family, led them to
introduce gradual reforms in the various personal laws based on the relevant
group¹s traditions and initiatives.
Neither minority recognition nor the promotion of constitutional values
shaped personal law policy. Policy-makers focused their visions of the
modern Indian family on Hindu law alone as they equated the Hindu, the
Indian, and the secular-modern. The equation of the Muslim, minority
difference, and resistance to modernity led them not to change the minority
laws until the 1970s, and to thereafter introduce more limited changes in
these laws than group opinion and tradition enabled. The imagination of the
nation, its constituent groups and cultures, and its deepest inequalities
through asymmetric engagement with the various religious groups shaped other
aspects of Indian multiculturalism as well, and weakened efforts to build
inter-religious understanding and reduce durable inequalities.
Narendra Subramanian studies the politics of nationalism,
religion, ethnicity, gender and race, primarily in India. His work explores the
role of identity politics in political mobilization, electoral competition,
public culture, and public policy; the functioning of democracies amidst social
inequalities with long histories; and different ways in which policy-makers and
citizens attempt to resolve the tensions between official secularism and the
significant presence of religion in public life. He is Associate Professor of
Political Science at McGill University. His book, Ethnicity and Populist
Mobilization: Political Parties, Citizens and Democracy in South India (Oxford
University Press, 1999), explored how mobilization behind language and caste
banners strengthened democracy in parts of India. He is completing a book
manuscript titled Nation and Family: Personal Law, Cultural Pluralism, and
Gendered Citizenship in India, which examines the personal laws specific to
religious group, as sites in which official nationalism, multiculturalism,
secularism, and citizenship were formed. A new project of his compares the
effects of enfranchisement on the socio-economic status of India's lower castes
and African-Americans, focusing on two regions of particularly high ascriptive
inequalities - the Kaveri delta in southern India and the Mississippi delta in
the southern United States. Subramanian received his B.A. from Princeton
University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
This lecture is co-sponsored by the Global Legal Studies Center and
the South Asia Legal Studies Working Group and is part of the lecture
series on "Role of Law in Developing and Transition Countries" with
support from the Division of International Studies, The International
Institute and Global Studies.
Thursday, February 24: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Balasubramaniam Murali
Advisor for Afghanistan & Iran in UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Asia & the Pacific
Audio Download
Development Challenges in Afghanistan
In 2010, Afghanistan continues to grapple with an enduring low-grade
insurgency which, after a generation of conflict, presents an extremely
complex and challenging environment in which to support the establishment
of the foundations of a functioning state and the provision of human security
for its citizens. Despite massive efforts by the international community
to assist the Afghan government significant progress continues to be confounded
by deteriorating security exacerbated by increasing poverty and the narcotics
trade, a high degree of geographical and programmatic aid fragmentation,
and the precarious legitimacy of the Government in the eyes of many Afghans.
Though Afghanistan has seen significant improvement in the health and education
sectors, progress against MDG targets for gender quality and income generation
is minimal, while Government capacity, corruption and security constraints
continue to prevent the provision of even basic services to large swaths
of the population. Thus it has turned out to be one of the biggest development
challenges of our time.
Balasubramaniam Murali is currently Programme Advisor / Desk Officer
for Afghanistan & Iran in UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Asia & the Pacific based
in UNDP HQ in New York. Afghanistan is UNDP’s largest programme globally with
a 2010 programme size of US $ 750 million. Concurrently he is also an elected
Staff Representative in the UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Global Staff Council. He is also
a visiting/guest faculty at the Fordham Law School / Leitner Centre lecturing
on MDGs & development. He is a faculty of Junior Chamber International after
graduation at the Training of Trainers (JCI TROT) Programme held at Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia in May 1984. He has a Ph.D in Economics from the University
of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. He has a Masters Degree in Economics from the
University of Madras, India.
Dr. Murali’s visit to UW-Madison is being hosted by the Center for
Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia, Center for South Asia, Global
Health Initiative, Global Studies, Go Global!, International Learning Community,
International Student Services-Millennium Development Goals Awareness Project,
Model United Nations, and WUD-Global Connections. For more information,
email
mdgap@studentlife.wisc.edu or
see http://www.iss.wisc.edu/mdgap.
Thursday, March 3: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Rakesh Basant
Visiting Professor, Business, UW-Madison
Audio Download
Who Participates in Higher Education in India? Rethinking the Role of Affirmative Action
The introduction of reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs)
in higher education in India has rekindled the old debate around affirmative
action. Some empirical results on how an individual’s participation in
India’s higher education (HE) is dependent on her religious affiliations,
socio-economic status and demographic characteristics. The key argument
is that an appropriate measure of ‘deficits’in participation should inform
the nature and scope of affirmative action. On isolating the effect of
socio-religious affiliation from other factors that may influence participation
in HE, what emerges is a suggestion that the deficits faced by some marginalised
groups are not substantial. If reservation policy for these groups is to
be justified only on the basis of low participation, it may require a review.
Rakesh Basant is currently a visiting Professor at the School of Business at
UW, Madison. His regular position is that of a Professor of Economics and Chairperson,
Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at the Indian Institute
of Management, Ahmedabad, India. Current teaching and research interests focus
on firm strategy, innovation, public policy & regulation. Recent work has focused
on competition policy, inter-organizational linkages for technology development
(especially academia-industry relationships), strategic and policy aspects of
intellectual property rights, linkages between public policy and technological
change, industrial clusters, economics of strategy and the small scale sector
in India. Sectoral focus of the research in the aforementioned areas has been
on Pharmaceutical, IT, Electronics and Auto-component industries. Was a member
of the Indian Prime Minister’s High-Level Committee (also known as Sachar Committee)
to write a report on the Social, Economic and Educational Conditions of Muslims
in India. In continuation of this work, part of his current research focuses
on issues relating to affirmative action especially in higher education. Has
also been a recipient of the of the Ford Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship
in Economics and has spent two years at the Economic Growth Center, Yale University,
USA as a Visiting Research Fellow. He has also worked as a consultant to several
international organizations.
Thursday, March 10: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Farida C. Khan
Professor of Economics and Co-Director, Center for International Studies, UW-Parkside
Audio Download
Predicaments of Plains Adibashis or Indigenous Groups in Bangladesh
Building on visits made to different parts of Bangladesh, this talk
will describe the ongoing problems faced by various adibashi groups in
Bangladesh. Large numbers of adibashis in the Eastern part of the country
are located in the less densely populated hills as opposed to others who
are part of the plains, many living at the edge of forests in their own
villages or intermingled with other communities. This talk will focus on
these communities who are not in the hills – or can be called plains adibashis.
These peoples are very often indistinguishable in appearance from mainstream
Bangladeshis and both the state and society has largely tended to deny
that they belong to unique communities. It has therefore been necessary
to place the recognition of their identity on to a political platform.
The plains adibashis have joined the clearly distinguishable hills adibashis
to further this political program.
The distinctions of identity are disappearing among plains adibashis, often through
rapid or slow violence, making it difficult to identify them as separate groups.
How are the state and society complicit in such a disappearance of identity and
what is the future of such a transition? Under the assumption that preservation
is desirable, what types of forces are in place allowing preservation, what kind
of preservation has been encouraged, and what possibilities exist within the
current frameworks?
Thursday, March 24: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
S. Akbar Zaidi
Visiting Professor,International Public Affairs & Middle Eastern,
South Asian and African Studies, Columbia University
Audio Download
A More Democratic Pakistan?
Unlike many other developing countries which have moved away from
military rule and the military's dominance in the past, with the
strengthening of democratic processes and institutions, Pakistan still
struggles with a week democratic set-up following nine years of its most
recent military rule. Do Pakistan's political actors and civil society
have the ability to strengthen democracy in Pakistan, or will the chronic
dynamics of a security-state, continue to determine Pakistan's political
future? Has the United States played a role in strengthening democracy
in Pakistan, or with the war on terror, and along with Pakistan's military,
has democracy been compromised? Do Pakistan's political and civilian actors
at all have the ability to establish democracy?
S. Akbar Zaidi is the author of a number of books, including, The
New Development Paradigm: Papers on Institutions, NGOs, Gender and
Local Government (1999), Pakistan’s Economic
and Social Development: The Domestic, Regional and Global Context (2004),
and Issues
in Pakistan's Economy (2005). His most
recent book, Military, Civil Society and Democratization
in Pakistan (2011),
examines the political economy of the Musharraf regime. He lives
and works in Karachi, Pakistan, but is currently a visiting professor at Columbia
University, New York, where he has a joint position at SIPA (the School of
International and Public Affairs), and at MESAAS (the Department of Middle
Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies).
Co-Sponsored by the American
Institute of Pakistan Studies & the Pakistani Students Association
Who Benefits From U.S. Aid to Pakistan?, S. Akbar
Zaidi. Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace Policy Outlook, 2011. Download
the PDF.
Thursday, March 31: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Mitra Sharafi
Assistant Professor of Law & History, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Audio Download
Parsi Legal Culture in British India
This talk explores the unusual and strategic use of law by one ethno-religious
minority in colonial South Asia. I use the example of the Parsis, who were
Persian migrants to India and followers of Zoroastrianism, to show how
one ethno-religious community gained, rather than lost, cultural autonomy
through its heavy use of colonial law. As lobbyists, legislators, lawyers,
judges, jurists and litigants, Parsis worked from within and through the
colonial state, rather than from outside or against it, to de-Anglicize
the law that applied to them. By the end of British rule in 1947, Parsi
law consisted of distinctive legal institutions and substantive law, all
of which came about through Parsi-led initiatives and professional opportunities
exploited by Parsis, as well as a steady traffic of intra-group litigation.
Through the adoption of the colonizer’s legal ways, Parsis came to control
that law that governed them.
Mitra Sharafi studies the history of law in colonial India. She holds
two UK law degrees and a doctorate in history. At the UW Law School, she
teaches Contracts I to first-year law students. She is also part of UW's
Legal Studies program, an interdisciplinary undergraduate major that combines
law with the humanities and social sciences. Sharafi teaches two Legal
Studies courses: "Legal Pluralism" and "Law and Colonialism." Sharafi is
affiliated with the History Department, and is involved with the UW Center
for South Asia.
Co-sponsored by the Global Legal Studies Center and South Asia Legal Studies Working Group
Monday, April 4: 4 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Deba Prashad Chatterjee
Associate Professor in Sociology, Maulana Azad College at the University of Calcutta,
and Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at the Oklahoma State University
Audio Download
Globalization, Human Rights, and Agrarian Movements in Contemporary India
Globalization for India has two opposite implications. While it has
opened up new possibilities of economic and social development despite
infrastructure bottlenecks, the problem of distributive justice seems to
be intensifying. Besides the rise of a sizeable middle class and the concomitant
robust economic growth promises, the feeling of relative deprivation is
mounting among the underprivileged sections of the population often resulting
in sustained protest movements of the agrarian population in different
parts of the country. Post-colonial state’s response to such movements
is also creating newer instances of human rights violation and injustice
at times.
Following the lecture will be a PERFORMANCE entitled "Singing the Rural: India
Meets America in a Cross-Cultural Agrarian Song Swap" at 7:30 P.M., 325 Pyle
Center. Environmental sociologist and Bengali folk singer Deba Prashad Chatterjee
will swap rural songs with Madison folk musicians. A number of Madison musicians
have been invited to trade tunes with him. These events are free and open
to the public and are co-sponsored by the Department of Agroegology and the
Development Studies Program.
Thursday, April 7: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Ellen Raven
Lecturer, International Institute Asian Studies, Leiden
The emergence of the early Gupta style in gold coins and non-miniaturized arts
By the end of the 4th century CE, subtle changes hail the emergence
of a new stylistic vocabulary for the North Indian arts of the Gupta period.
It expresses itself through rock-cut reliefs at sites of worship, through
terracotta panels lining brick temples for the Hindu gods, and via an opulent
imagery applied in gold coins. These coins were struck from the time of
King Samudragupta, around 350, until the very end of Gupta rule by the
early 6th century. Their manufacture runs parallel with that of early and
mature sculptural arts in media other than gold. Although important studies
exist for the sculptural styles of the early Gupta age, the numismatic
manifestation of this new vocabulary remains virtually unstudied. Certain
continuities and innovations in visual designs of the early Gupta period
(both in sculpture and in gold) illustrate coherence in workmanship transcending
the limits of individual media.
Ellen Raven (PhD with honors, Leiden University 1991) lectures in arts
and material culture of South Asia at Leiden University, The Netherlands.
She specializes in iconographies and styles of early Indian arts and architecture.
Her research focuses on numismatics of the Gupta period in North India (4th-6th
cent. AD), in particular the gold coins of the period. She is the general
editor in the international bibliographic project ABIA South and Southeast
Asian Art and Archaeology Index and secretary of the European Association
of South Asian Archaeology and Art.
Co-Sponsored by University of Wisconsin Lectures Committee.
Tuesday, April 12: 6-7 PM
Pyle Center Auditorium
Thomas Hammes
Colonel, United States Marine Corps (Ret.)
Developing a Strategy for South Asia: A Contrarian View
Ten years into the Afghanistan conflict, the United States still
lacks a coherent strategy for Afghanistan. Yet because of the nature of the
region and the conflict, we really need a regional strategy for South Asia.
This talk will briefly discuss U.S. efforts to develop a strategy
to date, examine the problems associated with that strategy and suggest an
alternative approach based on a regional strategy.
Col. T.X. Hammes retired from the Marine Corps in 2005 after 30
years of service. He received his Ph.D. in modern history from Oxford University
and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic
Studies, National Defense University. He has lectured widely at U.S. and International
Staff and War Colleges and has been a featured speaker on future conflict and
homeland security at conferences around the world.
Hammes has published two books and over 80 articles and opinion pieces.
His most recent book, "Forgotten Warriors: The 1st Provisional
Marine Brigade, the Corps Ethos, and the Korean War", was
released September 2010. The book concludes that culture as much as technology
is at the heart of military effectiveness. In his earlier book, "The
Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century" (2004), he
examines the evolution of warfare in the 21st century and questions whether
the U.S. military is evolving effectively.
Thursday, April 14: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Neeti Nair
Assistant Professor of History, University of Virginia
The Problem of Return for Partition’s Punjabi Hindu Refugees
Recent scholarship on the Partition of India has engaged with one
of the largest migrations of the twentieth century mostly by focusing on
particular forms of violence inflicted between religiously informed communities,
and against women. These narratives of trauma tell one kind of story. In
my forthcoming book ‘Changing Homelands and the Partition of India’, I
explore several different life histories of Punjabi Hindus who moved from
west Punjab to Delhi in 1947. Although every life history is scarred by
Partition violence, life since 1947 has shaped these refugees’ memories
in very different ways. In my talk I will examine two different sets of
interviews. One tells the presumably typical story of loss, nostalgia,
and the desire to return ‘home’ while the other speaks more openly of settling
down and not wishing to return to what has now become Pakistan. I argue
that these different experiences are a testimony to the work of time over
the last six decades. These life histories also complicate the way we tend
to conceive of the Partition generation and the longer term consequences
of Partition.
Thursday, April 21: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Lauren Mueenuddin
Specialist in International Maternal and Newborn Health
Audio Download
Maternal and Child Health in Pakistan
Lauren Mueenuddin, a public health specialist, and South Asian FLAS
Scholar, will discuss the current state of maternal, child and newborn
health in Pakistan as well as some of successful government and non-governmental
interventions to address their needs.
Lauren Mueenuddin has been working in the field of international
maternal and child health for over 20 years, most recently at the World
Bank in the Health, Nutrition and Population Unit in Washington DC. Prior
to this, she spent fifteen years in Pakistan working in maternal and reproductive
health (RH) with USAID (as Senior Technical Advisor and Deputy Chief of
Party for the $50 million Pakistan Initiative for Mothers and Newborns),
with the United Nations (UNICEF, UNFPA) and various international NGOs
including Save the Children, the Population Council, Population Services
International (PSI), and Doctors of the World. Her area of expertise is
in the development of field-based interventions for maternal and newborn
mortality reduction. She holds a masters degree in public health from Johns
Hopkins University (2002) and a masters degree in International Affairs
and South Asian Studies from Columbia University (1990).
Thursday, April 28: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Kishan Rana
Distinguished International Visitor
Audio Download
Understanding India's Rise as a Great Power
India is seen today as a leading element in the ‘rise of Asia’. Together
with China, the country enjoys a high rate of economic growth; it has a
‘young’ population of 1.2 billion (as per the 2011 census results announced
in April). As the same time, the country faces daunting social and human
development challenges. What role is India likely to play in international
affairs? Is its rise likely to be a benevolent phenomenon, for its neighbors,
for Asia and for the rest of the world? We explore these challenges, and
look at the positive and negative factors that may shape the outcome.
Co-Sponsored by University of Wisconsin Lectures Committee.
Thursday, May 5: 12-1 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Katherine Ewing
Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Baishakhi Taylor
Associate Director, North Carolina Consortium for South Asian Studies;
Program Director, Duke Engage Kolkata, India; Assistant Adjunct Professor
of South Asian Studies
Audio Download
Mourning, Ambivalence, and Acceptance: Friends, Family and Sex Reassignment Surgery in Kolkata
While the Indian nation state struggles with the question of citizenship
and rights for its 'queer subjects', the word 'queer' and the idea of a
“sexual identity” are becoming more salient in public culture, though discussions
of sexuality continue to be off limits in many social circles. Within this
changing social and legal environment, how do families respond to the process
of coming out? In this paper we look at stories from two different but
related groups: individuals in India who have come out to their friends
and family, and individuals who have had friends and family come out to
them. The narratives, based on interviews conducted during the summer of
2010, illustrate negotiations of sexuality and a range of “queer” identities
among urban middle class families in Kolkata. In our analysis, we find
strategies of acceptance within families that often contrast with publicly
salient social taboos.
Katherine Pratt Ewing is Professor of Anthropology at the University
of Wisconsin, Madison. Before moving to UW in the fall of 2010, she was Professor
of Cultural Anthropology and Religion at Duke University, where she also served
as Executive Director of the North Carolina Consortium for South Asian Studies.
Her research focuses on debates among Muslims about the proper practice of
Islam and the complex relationships among Islam, secularism, and modernity.
She has done ethnographic fieldwork in Pakistan and Turkey and among Muslims
in Germany, The Netherlands, and the United States. Her books include Arguing
Sainthood: Modernity, Psychoanalysis and Islam (Duke, 1997), Stolen Honor:
Stigmatizing Muslim Men in Berlin (Stanford, 2008), and the edited volumes
Shariat and Ambiguity in South Asian Islam (University of California, 1988)
and Being and Belonging: Muslim Communities in the US since 9/11 (Russell
Sage, 2008).
Baishakhi Banerjee Taylor is the Assistant Director of the Duke Center
for Civic Engagement. She is also the Associate Director of the North Carolina
Consortium for South Asian Studies and an assistant adjunct Professor of South
Asian Studies at Duke University. Currently she is also a core faculty for
the Focus Cluster on " Knowledge in the Service of Society" where her course
explores the methods and ethics of doing cvic engagement. A sociologist by
training, Baishakhi's research interests focus on mixed methodology in social
sciences. Her previous research projects include analyzing political campaigns
and HIV/AIDS prevention research. Baishakhi's recent scholarship includes
developing interculturally competent curricula for US classrooms, funded by
US dept of Education Fulbright Hays Grant.
