Tag: books

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Conversations on South Asia with Gregory Clines

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Tuesday, January 10 | 12:15-1:15 PM ET | Zoom

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-clines

cover of "Jain Ramayana Narratives"

The Rāmāyaṇa—the story of Rām and the kidnapping of his beloved Sītā by the malevolent Rāvaṇa—is one of the world’s best-known epics. Translated, transformed, told, and retold for centuries, the tale remains an important touchstone for religious—and political—life across South Asia and in the diaspora.     

Yet for all its popularity, most associate the epic with Hindu religious traditions. What sense, then, can we make of Jain retellings? What moral, ethical, and political imaginings do these versions offer? 

Analyzing three Jain texts, Gregory Clines (Trinity University) offers some answers in his new book Jain Rāmāyaṇa Narratives: Moral Vision and Literary Innovation (Routledge Advances in Jaina Studies, 2022).

Join us on January 10 to learn more.   

Paula Richman (Emerita, Oberlin College) and Sohini Pillai (Kalamazoo College) will be joining the author for this discussion.

Elizabeth Lhost will moderate.

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-clines

All are welcome to attend.

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The Conversations on South Asia Series is sponsored by the Bodas Family Academic Programming Fund, the Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages Program, and the Department of History at Dartmouth College.

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2022–23

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The Conversations on South Asia series invites authors to discuss their recent publications in South Asian studies with scholars from within and beyond the field. Featuring experts in history, religious studies, politics, and gender studies, the series brings regional experts together with disciplinary and interdisciplinary readers and respondents.

Sign up for our mailing list at the bottom of the page to receive updates about our upcoming events or register for the individual events using the links below.

Sex, Law, and the Politics of Age: Child Marriage in India, 1891–1937

Tuesday, September 13 | 12:15–1:15 PM ET

Ishita Pande, Queen’s University

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-pande

Hindutva and Violence: V. D. Savarkar and the Politics of History

Tuesday, October 11 | 12:15–1:15 PM ET

Vinayak Chaturvedi, University of California, Irvine

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-chaturvedi

Urban Histories of Rajasthan: Religion, Politics and Society (1550–1800)

Tuesday, November 8 | 12:15–1:15 PM ET

Elizabeth M. Thelen, University of Exeter

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-thelen

Mumbai Taximen: Autobiographies and Automobilities in India

Tuesday, December 13 | 12:15–1:15 PM ET

Tarini Bedi, University of Illinois at Chicago

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-bedi

Jain Rāmāyaṇa Narratives: Moral Vision and Literary Innovation

Tuesday, January 10 | 12:15–1:15 PM ET

Gregory M. Clines, Trinity University

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-clines

Ethical Encounters: Transnational Feminism, Human Rights, and War Cinema in Bangladesh

Tuesday, February 14 | 12:15–1:15 PM ET

Elora Halim Chowdhury, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-chowdhury

The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India

Tuesday, March 14 | 12:15–1:15 PM ET

Shailaja Paik, University of Cincinnati

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-paik.

Ploughshares and Swords: India’s Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War

Tuesday, April 11 | 12:15–1:15 PM ET

Jayita Sarkar, University of Glasgow

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-sarkar.

Empires of Complaints: Mughal Law and the Making of British India, 1765–1793

Tuesday, May 9 | 12:15–1:15 PM ET

Robert Travers, Cornell University

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-travers.

The Conversations on South Asia series is coordinated by Elizabeth Lhost (elizabeth.lhost [at] dartmouth.edu). Doug Haynes, Tiraana Bains, Preeti Singh and other members of the South Asian studies community at Dartmouth College contributed to the planning of this year’s series.

Conversations on South Asia is sponsored by the Bodas Family Academic Programming Fund, the Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages Program, and the Department of History at Dartmouth College.

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Conversations on South Asia with Sana Haroon

Tuesday, February 8 from 12:15–1:15 pm ET

For centuries, mosques have been a site for Muslim worship, study, socializing, and so much more. They have also been hotly contested, fiercely guarded, and debated with great animosity.

What can legal disputes tell us about the history of Muslim worship? How did battles over mosques and endowments redraw the lines of sectarianism—and secularism—in South Asia?

Cover of "The Mosques of Colonial South Asia: A Social and Legal History of Muslim Worship" by Sana Haroon

Following a series of court cases and legal contests involving congregational sites from across the subcontinent, in The Mosques of Colonial South Asia: A Social and Legal History of Muslim Worship (I. B. Tauris, 2021), historian Sana Haroon (University of Massachusetts Boston) shows how mosques became sites of social influence and control across the nineteenth and into the twentieth century.

Join us on Tuesday, February 8 from 12:15–1:15 pm ET to hear more.

Archaeologist Mudit Trivedi (Anthropology, Stanford University) and legal scholar Adnan Zulfiqar (Rutgers Law School) will be joining as discussants.

Elizabeth Lhost (History, Dartmouth College) will moderate the conversation.

Register online to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-haroon

Event attendees may use the following discount codes when purchasing a copy of the book from the publisher MCSA35UK (for UK and Europe orders) and MCSA35US (for US orders).

The Conversations on South Asia Series is sponsored by the Bodas Family Academic Programming Fund, the Asian, Societies, Cultures, and Languages Program, and the Department of History at Dartmouth College.

All are welcome to attend.

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April 6: Conversations on South Asia with Durba Mitra

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Join us on Tuesday, April 6 from 4–5:15 pm EDT for the final event in our series this year to hear Durba Mitra (Carol K. Pforzheimer Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute | Assistant Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University) discuss her latest book, Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought (Princeton University Press, 2020).

Mitra’s work examines how so-called “deviant female sexuality” became foundational to the colonial knowledge-production project and identifies the concept of the “prostitute” as a key site for British and elite Indian men’s attempts to “know” India. Prachi Deshpande has praised the book for being “a valuable contribution to the global history of sexuality” and Omnia El Shakry calls it “an indispensable book for all scholars of gender and sexuality.”

Mingwei Huang (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Dartmouth College) and Jacqueline Wernimont (Digital Humanities and Social Engagement, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Dartmouth College) will be joining us as discussants, and Elizabeth Lhost (History, Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College) will moderate the discussion.

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/indiansexlife

All are welcome.

Support for the Conversations on South Asia series is provided by the Dartmouth Society of Fellows, the Bodas Family Academic Programming Fund, the Department of History, and the Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages Program.

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March 2: Conversations on South Asia with Nandini Chatterjee

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Join us Tuesday, March 2 from 12–1 pm (EST) for the next Conversations on South Asia event with Nandini Chatterjee (History, Exeter University).

This month, we’ll be discussing Chatterjee’s most recently published book, Negotiating Mughal Law: A Family of Landlords Across Three Indian Empires, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020 and is freely available as an open access book through Cambridge Open.

In the book, Chatterjee explores the textures, nuances, conflicts, and complications of Mughal law using an archive of legal documents and materials that she reconstructed from multiple sites and repositories in and beyond South Asia.

Dominic Vendell (History, Exeter University) and Samira Sheikh (History, Vanderbilt University) will join us for this conversation.

Elizabeth Lhost (History Department, Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College) will moderate.

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/mughal-law

Support for the Conversations on South Asia Series comes from the the Bodas Family Academic Programming Fund, the Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages Program, the Department of History, and the Society of Fellows at Dartmouth.

This event is free and open to the public.