CSAS Graduate Interdisciplinary Roundtable on South Asia
Writing South Asian History: Power, Representation and Subjectivity

Friday, January 31, 2:30pm-4:00pm
Weiser Hall, 10th Floor

Chair and moderator: Leela Fernandes
Director, Center for South Asian Studies, U-M International Institute

Arighna Gupta, History Department: Digitization and Open-Access: Post-coloniality and the politics of archives
Swarnim Khare, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures: Begunaah Qaidi by Abdul Wahid Sheikh - The Practice of Reading and Translating an Indian Prison Narrative
Shourjendra Mukherjee, History Department: Magneto: A Universal Jew and ‘Third World’ from Margin

4:30pm-6:00pm
Keynote Address
Thinking About Politics in South Asian Studies
John Harriss, Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Simon Fraser University

Keynote Address by John Harriss, Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Simon Fraser University

Thinking About Politics in South Asian Studies

In this talk Professor Harriss will reflect on the ways in which patterns of political mobilization and participation in India over the period since Independence have been understood, drawing on the work of historians and anthropologists, as well of political scientists. How has democracy worked in practice in a context in which, as Barrington Moore argued, there had been no ‘bourgeois revolution’? Is India still to be understood as a ‘patronage democracy’? Has the significance of ideological cleavages emphatically replaced that of social cleavages? Is Indian politics best understood through specifically Indian concepts? He will consider these and other questions about knowledge of Indian politics.

John Harriss, now Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, and formerly of the the London School of Economics, began studies of South Asia after driving overland from England to India in 1969. His research has ranged widely from work on agrarian change and labour studies to recent work on business and politics. He is the author (with Stuart Corbridge) of "Reinventing India," among other books.

If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation to attend this event, please reach out to us at least 2 weeks in advance of this event. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.