IU's Dhar India Studies Program Announces Its Fall Lecture Series

This fall's India Studies lecture series at Indiana University will again bring leading historians, anthropologists, political scientists and musicologists knowledgeable about India and South Asia to the IU Bloomington campus.

The lecture series, which is presented by the Madhusudan and Kiran C. Dhar India Studies Program, is free and open to the public. It will begin next Thursday (Sept. 15) with a presentation by Sumit Ganguly, emeritus director and the Rabindranth Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations and professor of political science at IU.

Ganguly will speak on the topic "Discord and Collaboration in Indo-Pakistani Relations," beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the Dhar India Studies House, 825 E. Eighth St. His talk is part of the College of Arts and Sciences' Themester series, "Making War, Making Peace."

Other events in the series will include:

Sept. 22 -- A Themester talk, "Veterans and Violence: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing in the Partition of India," by Steven Wilkinson, the Nilekani Professor of India and South Asia Studies and professor of political science and international affairs at Yale University. Wilkinson's book Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India (Cambridge, 2004) won the Woodrow Wilson Award from the American Political Science Association in 2006. His talk will take place from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in room 003 of Ballantine Hall.
Oct. 6 -- "From the Empire of Information to the Documentary State: Notes on Scribes and Writing in Early Colonial South India," by Bhavani Raman, assistant professor and the David L. Rike University Preceptor in history at Princeton University, 5:30 p.m. at Dhar India House.
Oct. 13 -- "An Evening Exploring Hereditary Musicianship in the Indian Tradition," presented by Amjad, Amaan and Ayaan Ali Khan. This event, which is co-sponsored by the Jacobs School of Music and the Office of the Vice President for International Affairs and hosted by the Stone Age Institute, is limited to invited guests.
Oct. 25 -- "The Politics of Need: Notes on Urban Poverty," by Veena Das, the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at John Hopkins University, 5:30 p.m. at the Persimmon Room of the Indiana Memorial Union, 900 E. Seventh St.
Nov. 3 -- "The Sufi Shaikhs and the Formation of the Mughal Regime in India," by Muzaffar Alam, the George V. Bobrinskoy Professor in South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. His talk, which is co-sponsored by the Department of Islamic Studies, begins at 5:30 p.m. at Dhar India House.
Nov. 10 -- "The Past as Story: Historical Memory and the Storytelling Tradition in Kashmir," by Chitralekha Zutshi, associate professor of history at the College of William and Mary, 5:30 p.m. at Dhar India House.
Dec. 1 -- "Travails of Time: Information Technology, Bangalore and the Arc of History," by Simanti Dasgupta, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Dayton, 5:30 p.m. at Dhar India House.

For more information about the Dhar India Studies Program, call 812-855-5798 or send a message to india@indiana.edu.