MAI Seminars, Conferences, Visitors and Events
Seminar
hosted by
Monash Asia Institute, Monash University and
the Indian Council for Cultural Relations
Thursday 31 July 2008, 6.30 pm to 9:00 pm (Please note re-scheduled date and time )
Monash Conference Centre
Level 7, 30 Collins St, Melbourne CBD
Indian Dance Innovations - Indigenous Inspirations not Copies
Dr Sunil Kothari, a leading dance historian, scholar, author and critic of Indian classical dances.
Dr Sunil Kothari is the Vice President of the World Dance Alliance Asia Pacific from India. He is currently a visiting Professor for Dance, School of Arts and Aesthetics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and was formerly Professor and Head, Dept. of Dance, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. He is a recipient of the PADMA SHRI, a civil honour bestowed by the President of India for his outstanding contribution to the field of classical Indian Dance and related arts. Dr Sunil Kothari researches on several aspects of Indian Dance forms, including the Sattriya Dances of Assam. He has written more than 14 books on Indian classical dance.
For more details about Dr Kothari, see: http://www.sunilkothari.com
RSVP (essential) to Monash-Asia-Institute Enquiries < MAI.Enquiries@adm.monash.edu.au > with "Indian Dance Innovations" in subject heading.
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Seminar
hosted by Monash Asia Institute
Thursday 17 July 2008, 10.00 am
Room S822, Level 8 South, Menzies Building
Monash University Clayton campus
The problem of Orientalism
Speaker: Mr David Geraghty
PhD candidate, Monash Asia Institute, Monash University
My paper will investigate the persistence of Orientalism, looking in particular at the 'inner' Orientalism through which certain Indian writers have authenticated and affirmed orientalist stereotypes for a non-Indian readership. My starting point is Suketu Mehta's 'Maximum city', a portrait of contemporary Bombay and its inhabitants. At one level, Mehta occupies the liminal position (between cultures) identified for colonised subjects by Homi Bhabha and others. Through his inside knowledge, Mehta can accurately convey Bombay to his American/Western readership, and this makes the book authoritative and attractive. There is, however, a conservative subtext to this liminality. Mehta leverages off his Indian ethnicity to play to the gallery, providing an essentialised and caricatured version of Bombay, a rogue's gallery of gangsters, murderers and bar girls, all set against the city's inexorable decay. At times the book echoes faintly with Katherine Mayo's portrayal of India (in 'Mother India') as a freakshow of base carnality and general incompetence. In its sensational tone and reductionism, 'Maximum city' carries the hallmarks of Orientalism as expounded by Edward Said. Existing at the interface of coloniser and colonised, Mehta is one of the authors of a new 'inner' Orientalism, expatriates who recast the raw material of their past within the conservative intellectual milieu of post-9/11 America. Moreover, this literature risks undermining the significant gains made by post-colonial theorists in disrupting Eurocentric and elitist (nationalist) paradigms in the historiography of late colonial and post-independence India.
Biography: David Geraghty works in research development at the University of Auckland, and is pursuing PhD study through the Monash Asia Institute. His doctoral thesis investigates new forms of Orientalism in the context of writing around India (historiography, travel writing, biography). He is particularly interested in the role of expatriate Indian writers in contemporary Orientalism. He holds a Master of Creative Writing from the University of Auckland, a BA Hons in communication studies from Auckland University of Technology, and a BA Hons (combined) in English literature and religious studies from the University of Otago.
Enquiries: MAI.Enquiries@adm.monash.edu.au
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"Meet the Monash Archaeologists" Seminar
Sunday 18 May 2008, 1:00 - 5:00 pm
Venue: Clemenger BBDO Auditorium,
National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) International
180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne
Presented in conjunction with the School of Geography & Environmental Science and Monash Asia Institute, Monash University
Prof Alan Finkel, Chancellor of Monash University, will launch this programme.
Archaeologists from Monash University will discuss their latest field
work and research in Victoria, Papua New Guinea, Sardinia and China. Speakers include:
"Treasures of the Taklimakan Desert, western China", Professor Jin Hai Long, Oasis Institute, Urumuqi (A research partner of the Monash Asia Institute)
"Not hunter-gatherers: dating the antiquity of ancient Aboriginal eel farming in western Victoria", Dr Ian J. McNiven, School of Geography & Environmental Science, Monash University
"Contrasting early agriculture in New Guinea and Southwest Asia", Dr Tim Denham, School of Geography & Environmental Science, Monash University
"The archaeology of seafaring and ceramic trade in southern Papua New Guinea", Dr Bruno David, School of Geography & Environmental Science,
Monash University
"Environmental change and the abandonment of the Punic-Roman port of Neapolis, Sardinia: pollen evidence from estuarine sediment cores", Ms Lucia Lancellotti, PhD candidate, School of Geography & Environmental Science, Monash University.
DOWNLOAD Flyers with illustration: Central Asian buddhist monks from Bezeklik Turfan | A western warrior from Sampul Urumqi | Philistine sarcophagi from the Punic-Roman archaeological site of Neapolis, SW Sardinia
Registration
Cost $25 Adult / $20 NGV Member / $22 Concession / $18 Student (includes afternoon tea)
Venue Clemenger BBDO Auditorium, NGV International
Event code P0865
Telephone: +61 3 8620 2222
This lecture is supported by National Gallery of Victoria Public Programs. It is funded through the collaboration of the Monash Asia Institute and the School of Environment Science at Monash University.
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Seminar
hosted by Monash Asia Institute
Thursday 17 April 2008, 1:00 pm
Room S822, Level 8 South, Menzies Building (11)
Monash University Clayton
Status of renewable energy development in the State of Maharashtra, India
Speaker: Mr Daulat Desai
Mr Daulat Desai is an Endeavour Executive Fellow visiting Australia to study the Australian Renewable Energy Policies and their implementation. The Monash Asia Institute (MAI) at Monash University is hosting Mr Desai and coordinating his visit in chosen area of professional development. Mr Desai is the State Public Servant and currently Additional Director General of the Maharashtra Energy Development Agency (MEDA), India.
He will be presenting a brief introduction of MEDA and the status of renewable energy development in the State of Maharashtra.
ALL WELCOME
Enquiries: MAI.Enquiries@adm.monash.edu.au
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Seminar
Wednesday 19 March 2008, 6:00 for 6:30 pm
Monash Conference Centre Level 7, 30 Collins St, Melbourne CBD
Thai Buddhism in the 21st Century: Contested Views
Prof Donald K. Swearer, Center for the Study of World Religions
Critics of contemporary Thai Buddhism point to a stultifying, hierarchical national Sangha; flagrant cases of monastic malfeasance; Buddhist practices out of touch with modern idioms; and the increasing marginalization of the role of the monk in Thai society. Other more optimistic voices cite increasing monastic involvement in forest conservation; innovative doctrinal interpretations; the strengthening of monastic higher education; the emergence of Buddhism women's movements; and socially engaged Buddhist lay NGOs. This lecture argues that such generalizations are inherently problematic and proposes that the diverse forms of contemporary Thai Buddhism might be better understood through the lens of a descriptive typology.
Donald K. Swearer is the Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies at Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA., U.S.A. His research has focused on Buddhism in Southeast Asia, especially Thailand. His recent monographs and edited volumes include: The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia (1995/2008); The Legend of Queen Cama: Bodhiramsi’s Camadevivamsa (1998); The State of Buddhist Studies in the World, 1971-1997 (2000); Becoming the Buddha: The Ritual of Image Consecration in Thailand (2004); Sacred Mountains in Northern Thailand and Their Legends (2004)
RSVP by email to monash.asia.institute@adm.monash.edu.au with "Thai Buddhism" as subject heading.
(This seminar is free and open to the public. All RSVPs will be accepted unless advised otherwise.)
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Special Seminar
hosted by Monash Asia Institute, Monash University
Wednesday, 27 February 2008, 1.00 pm
Room S822, Level 8 South, Menzies Building (11)
Monash University Clayton campus
Laws, Liberty and Livelihood: Need for a Bottom Up Agenda of Economic Reforms
Speaker: Madhu Kishwar, Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
The Monash Asia Institute is pleased to announce a special seminar by Madhu Kishwar, Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). She is the founder editor of "Manushi" - A Journal about Women and Society founded in 1978 as well as founder of "Manushi Sangathan", an organization committed to strengthening democratic rights and women's rights in India. At CSDS Madhu Kishwar is the Director of the Indic Studies Project and Convener of a series of International Conferences on Religions and Cultures in the Indic Civilization and also working on issues of pro poor economic reforms.
For the last five years, Madhu Kishwar and her organisation have been fighting for the rights of street vendors and rickshaw pullers in Delhi.
About her talk
While political scientists and theorists in India have engaged extensively with the need for greater political rights and freedom, there has been far less attention paid to issues of economic freedom. Political freedom has thus been understood in a very narrow sense of free and fair elections, right to representation in political institutions and decentralization of decision-making in civic affairs. The issue of economic rights and freedoms has predominantly been viewed through the prism of class struggle, with the state being projected as the sole 'protector' of the weak and vulnerable sections of society from the greed and exploitation of the rich and powerful. The bureaucracy avidly imbibed this Nehruvian bias because it facilitated the concentration of vast, arbitrary powers in its own hands.
Neither our economists nor our political theorists have tried to come to grips with the often predatory role of the State and how it works hard to wreck people's livelihoods and their self-confidence. Without economic freedom, whatever political freedom we have, becomes an empty ritual. That is a major reason why, despite such an actively involved electorate, Indian political democracy remains deeply flawed and has become hostage to anti-social elements. Since our intellectuals and media remain obsessed mainly with the political and electoral dimensions of democracy, they have more or less ignored the systematic and routine loot, extortion, violence, and indignities suffered by our people as they go about perfectly legitimate economic pursuits.
The livelihood concerns of the vast majority of our people remain marginalized even in the minds of those pushing for economic reforms because the agenda of economic reforms has remained obsessively focused on the entry of transnational corporations, the concerns of the Indian corporate sector, and the fate of government-run public enterprises, as they prepare to deal with a market open to competition. We cannot afford to overlook the fact that Indian and foreign corporations and the PSUs together provide employment to no more than 3% per cent of our population. As against about 10% who are self-employed in Europe and America, the vast majority of people in India (more than 90 %) work in the unorganized sector and the vast majority is still self-employed.
My presentation will focus on the absurd laws and regulations governing the livelihoods of two of the most visible and numerically large group of self employed poor in urban areas—namely street vendors and cycle rickshaw pullers—as illustrative examples of how needless bureaucratic controls trap the hard working poor in a web of illegality and make them victims of massive extortion rackets.
ALL WELCOME
RSVP to mai.enquiries@adm.monash.edu.au with "Rickshaw pullers" in the subject heading of your email.
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MAI Postgraduate Seminar
(Please note the new time and date)
Thursday 21 February 2008, 11.00 am
Room S822, Level 8 South, Menzies Building (11), Monash University Clayton campus
The rise of Bangla Bhai & his merry men: State patronage, political complicity & religious militancy in Bangladesh
Mr Iftikar Rashid, Monash Asia Institute
In 2004, Bangla Bhai came into the national spotlight for running a so-called vigilante movement against outlawed leftist groups in the northern districts of Rajshahi division. Bangla Bhai took the law into his own hands, consolidated the Jamatul Mujahidden Bangladesh (JMB)'s position and established an illegal Islamic regime across enclaves in the region. Bangla Bhai quickly emerged as a household name synonymous with rising religious militancy in Bangladesh - home to 140 million people and the world’s third largest Muslim community after Indonesia and India. He eventually led Bangladesh's first overt insurgency campaign targeting state institutions and agencies.
This presentation discusses the emergence of Bangla Bhai as Bangladesh’s top terrorist to understand the country’s first overt religious militancy campaign from 2002 to 2005. It will discuss the organizational background of JMB followed by profiles of Bangla Bhai and other leaders. It will also focus on the JMB's terror campaign from 2002 to 2005, including a detailed case study on the infamous Rajshahi operation in 2004. The findings from the discussions will encourage an in-depth understanding of the religious militancy campaign that developed into a sustained overt insurgency movement led by Bangla Bhai. The analysis of the relationship between trends, motives and factors underlying JMB’s terror campaign will help provide recommendations to counter imminent terrorist trends in the future.
Ifti Rashid is a Masters of Arts (Research) student under the Monash Asia Institute. He is an AusAID Autralian Leadership Awards (ALA) and Golden Key scholar. Ifti has previously served as Lecturer, Independent University Bangladesh; Research Analyst, Social Development Team, World Bank; and, Assistant Program Coordinator for the Institute of Governance Studies in Bangladesh. His current involvements include serving as Member, Board of Trustees, for the Bangladesh Youth Employment and Advice Help Centre under the HRH Princes of Wales Youth Business International Program. He holds a Bachelors in Business & Commerce (Economics & Management) and Master of International Development & Environmental Analysis (Governance & Civil Society).
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Other seminars hosted by Asian Business and Economic Research Unit (ABERU), a Monash University research unit that works closely with the Monash Asia Institute.
Other Monash Asia Institute Seminars held in 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002