Events
Upcoming Events
All COSAS events are free and open to the public.
Event Archive
Twentieth Annual South Asia Graduate Student Conference: South Asian Stories and Storytelling
The theme for the SAGSC XX is Stories and Storytelling. Stories and their tellings are the bedrock of social life. Origin myths, national histories, religious texts, political manifestos, personal life histories — each of these shape understandings of the human...
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...
TAPSA: Postcolonial Bohemians: World-Poetry and “Troublesome” Poets in 1960s Bengal
Supurna Dasgupta, PhD Candidate, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations I track two different trajectories of world-poetry that thrived across continental barriers in postcolonial Bengal and in 1960s North America. Both these trajectories were...
Southern Asia Seminar:The Administration of Pollution: Evidence from Crop Burning in South Asia
Saad Gulzar Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University Air pollution in South Asia is one of the largest public health emergencies on the planet, responsible for a million deaths annually. A third of the pollution is caused...
TAPSA: Images of Belonging: Lawyers in the People’s Court
Krithika Ashok, PhD Student, Department of Anthropology The Supreme Court of India, since the 1980s, when it first articulated its “public interest litigation” jurisdiction, has often been flatteringly described as a “people’s court.” This reputation, however,...
Southern Asia Seminar: Wandering Wonderworkers: Madari views of place and space in Maharashtra and India
Shreeyash Palshikar Fulbright Nehru Fellow 2019-2020 I An Affiliate of the UPenn South Asia Center I Fusion Magician Itinerant magicians, jadoowallas or madaris, have astounded audiences in South Asia since antiquity. They fascinated pre-Mughal, Mughal, and...
TAPSA: The Dawning of the Persian Age: Occult Iranophilia in Akbar’s Hindustan
Shaahin Pishbin, PhD Student, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Akbar’s reign (1556-1605) as Mughal emperor has always been notable for his massive sponsorship of Persian letters and Iranian intellectuals. This paper considers what was at stake in the...
TAPSA: Singapore’s Counter-Colonial Aesthetics: The Semiotic Sink of the Westernized Enemy Within
Wee Yang Soh, PhD Student, Department of Anthropology Within sociopolitical discourse in modern Singapore, comparisons with Western powers, primarily the USA and the UK, have become de rigueur. Such comparisons have spanned discussions about race and minority...
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...
“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...