Events

Upcoming Events
All COSAS events are free and open to the public.
Event Archive
Southern Asia Seminar: Launch of Shailaja Paik’s new book The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity
Shailaja Paik Taft Distinguished Professor of History and Affiliate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of Cincinnati Shailaja Paik's first book Dalit Women's Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination (Routledge, 2014) examines the nexus...
Southern Asia Seminar: By Her Own Free Will: Non-Dual Reinterpretation of a Śākta Tantric Tradition in the Yoginīhṛdaya
Anya Golovkova Assistant Professor of Religion, Lake Forest College Following the composition of the earliest tantras elucidating the worship of Tripurasundarī, Śrīvidyā (Tradition of the Auspicious Mantra) was reinterpreted through the lens of non-dualism in...
Student Session with Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta
An insider analysis of Indian Democracy from a historical lens with Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, current Laurence S. Rockefeller Professor for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University and one of India's leading scholars and public intellectuals. Snacks and light...
Archiving the History of Modern Bengali Song
The musical genre called “adhunik Bangla gaan” or the “modern Bengali song” is a critical part of the history of modernity in Bengal. Yet this history remains largely undocumented and dispersed in public and private collections. Please join us for a presentation on...
TAPSA: Female Laborforce Participation and Intimate Partner Violence: The Role of Social Norms
Rubina Hundal, PhD student, Harris School of Public Policy Female labor force participation is often positively associated with domestic violence, consistent with backlash theory. How does the social acceptability of women’s work change this relationship? Using...
“A Cultural History of South Asian Literature in an Age of Transition (1700-1800)”
This workshop will bring together the scholars involved in a new publication project dedicated to the history of South Asian literature in the eighteenth century. The volume is part of a wider publication project with Bloomsbury titled A Cultural History of South...
Global Anti-Gender and Anti-LGBTQ+ Politics: Historical Continuities, Transnational Connections, Contested Futures
About the Event In recent years, social movements and political campaigns challenging women’s rights and LGBTQ+ equality have mobilized publics across the globe, from West Africa to Central and Eastern Europe, South Asia to North America. Even as some countries...
Southern Asia Seminar: Bhartṛhari’s view of language: is sphoṭa a mystic entity?
Mithilesh Chaturvedi, Professor, Department of Sanskrit, University of Delhi In Bhartṛhari’s philosophy, language and thought are not two distinct entities. Before speech manifests itself, it remains identified with the meaning. Thus, thought and language exist...
Film Screening of Jai Bhim Comrade, Followed by Discussion with Filmmaker Anand Patwardhan and Ritika Kaushik
For thousands of years, India’s Dalits were abhorred as “untouchables,” denied education and treated as bonded labor. By 1923, Bhimrao Ambedkar broke the taboo, won doctorates abroad, and fought for the emancipation of his people. He drafted India’s Constitution...
Southern Asia Seminar: Buddhist-inflected Sovereignties Across the Indian Ocean: A Pali Arena, 1200-1550
Anne Blackburn, Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Cornell University Based on Blackburn's new book, this talk presents case studies from locations in what are now Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand, and draws larger historical and methodological...