The 11th Annual Global South Asia Conference runs all day Feb 22-23 at 20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor.

Come one and Come ALL !!

Conference Theme: “Claims Making and Bordering Practices.”

The Global Asia Panel: 3:30-5:00  on Friday Feb 22, followed by reception

Panel Title: “Spaces of Mobility in South Asia” 

Panelists: Neelam Khoja (Harvard), Ayesha Omer (NYU), Rishad Choudhury (Oberlin)

Neelam Khoja, “Claiming Qandahar, Claiming Sovereignty: How Iranian and Afghan Warlords Legitimized Emerging Empires in Early Modern Iran and Hindustan”

Abstract: Safavids, Mughals, Afghans, and Nadirids attempted to conquer and control Qandahar throughout the early modern period. Qandahar, one of the oldest inhabited fortified cities in the region, was a strategic city for long-distance overland trade. It served as a port of entry to both Iran, to the west, and Hindustan, to the east. In the eighteenth century, conquering Qandahar was a requirement for claiming sovereignty. The Ghilzai Afghans managed to govern as an autonomous empire after successfully controlling Qandahar. It was only after ousting these Ghilzai Afghans that Nadir Shah was empowered enough to try his luck in Hindustan. Likewise, Ahmad Shah Abdali-Durrani’s claim as emperor was taken seriously only after he subjugated Qandahar, which became the capital of his empire. This paper examines eighteenth century primary sources in order to trace how emerging emperors legitimized their sovereign claims and its relation to Qandahar’s occupation.

Ayesha Omer, “Digital Connections on the New Silk Road: A Study of the Pak-China Fiber Optic Cable”

Abstract: This paper follows an overland fiber optic cable from China’s Xinjiang region across the disputed territories of Gilgit-Baltistan to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, as part of China’s global New Silk Road project. It charts the formation of this global digital media infrastructure on the ground of glaciers and mountains of the Himalayas and the situated social histories of Gilgit-Baltistan. This paper takes up the ground, not as an a priori condition, but as a political substrate that inflects the mediation of technological infrastructures as well as conditions of possibility of lifeworlds in Gilgit-Baltistan. Combining ethnographic and archival research, this paper draws on media studies, infrastructure studies, and theories of governmentality to support its arguments.

Rishad Choudhury, “Pilgrim Passages: Tradition and Transition in the South Asian Hajj.”

Abstract: Reading hajj narratives against political-administrative archives, this article elaborates a global microhistory of how the Meccan pilgrimage afforded new horizons of Muslim engagement as the Mughal and Ottoman empires declined and decentralized to give way to European hegemony (c. 1750-1830). It is argued that the sacred sites of Arabia acquired novel meaning for Indian pilgrims seeking a mirror for moral and political regeneration at home. At the same time, the turbulence of imperial transformations induced greater willingness to come to grips with the realities of votive travel, and in turn greater recognition of perceived differences between global Muslim cultures encountered on hajj. Hajj accounts thus signaled a radical break from classical genres, wherein objective experiences were subordinated to the immanent. Recovering the itineraries of Rafi‘-ud-Din Muradabadi (1721/22-1810), a north Indian Sunni scholar who journeyed by sea, and ‘Abdul Husain Karnataki (d. 1830), a southern Indian Shi‘a royal who traveled overland to the Hijaz, the essay observes that, conceived in the shadow of regime change in India and the Indian Ocean, their reflections anticipated essential modern trends in Muslim mobility. These included discrete distinctions between its religious and irreligious entailments, and an emergent episteme that further illuminates how the Muslim world was reimagined after the Muslim empires.

“But, reaching the Ka‘ba brought a lifelong desire to life.”
– Rafi‘-ud-Din Faruqi Muradabadi (1787)

The Global Asia Colloquium

May 10, 2019. 4:00-6:45. 

701KJCC (53 Washington Square South).  With Wine and Cheese.

Come One and Come All !!

Commodities, Nations, and Globalization

4:00-5:15. “The Symbolism of Dates in the Arabian Gulf States,” by Elise Bortz, Catherine Korren, Ha-Young Kwon, Richard Seeno, and Taylor Upchurch

In the face of rapid industrial development, how are the Arabian Gulf States reinstating the symbol of the date palm to affirm national identity? In this talk, we conduct a regional case study by examining the material culture of the United Arab Emirates. We will make the claim that the symbol of the date serves as a postmodern romanticization of a preindustrial Arabia. We cite the discovery of oil in the 20th century as a catalyst to the economic development of the region, yet also a motive in the reestablished cultural symbolism of the date. Today, the domestic date production represents less than 1% of the United Arab Emirates’ GDP. Thus we postulate that the fruit continues to serve as a cultural figurehead, which brings to light an inherent contradiction: the date, while seemingly indicative of national values, is invariably excluded from national production. We argue that this underscores the country’s emphasis on cultural capital as opposed to economic imperatives, highlighting the date’s existence as a historically tethered and culturally restorative symbol of the nation.

Presented by five undergraduate sophomore Dean’s Circle Honors Scholars in Liberal Studies.

Elise Bortz is pursuing a degree in Media, Culture and Communications with a minor in Business of Entertainment and Media Technologies. She is from the Bay Area. She has spent her time as a student writer, and currently works as a Development Intern at Jigsaw Productions.

Richard Seeno is from the Bay Area. He is double majoring in Global Liberal Studies and Italian Studies and minoring in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. As part of the Liberal Studies First Year Away Program, he spent his freshman year in Florence, where he will return for his junior year.

Catherine Korren is from Long Island. She is pursuing a major in Global Liberal Studies, concentrating in Politics, Rights and Development, with a double minor in Peace and Conflict Studies and Computer Science. She will be spending her junior year at NYU Tel Aviv.

Ha-Young Kwon is from Boston, pursuing a major in Media, Culture, and Communications. She participated in a gap year in the Fiji Islands as an international service volunteer before spending her freshman year in Paris, France with the Liberal Studies First Year Away program.

Taylor Upchurch is from Atlanta, and is a double majoring in History and Politics in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is the President of the Panhellenic Council in NYU’s Student Government Assembly and a member of the American Historical Association.

5:30-6:45. “Indian Pharma,  Ayurveda, and Global Patents: A Struggle for the Control of Medical Knowledge,” by Murphy Halliburton

Based on fieldwork in India (Kerala and Hyderabad) and the U.S., this presentation
examines the struggle between Indian pharmaceutical companies and global big pharma with a focus on the production of AIDS drugs and concerns about biopiracy of ayurvedic medical knowledge. Considering the views of activists, NGOs and pharmaceutical producers, this paper warns of public health concerns now that the conditions for Indian companies to produce and export medications have changed under the current WTO-enforced patent regime. The presentation will also consider opportunities for resistance and innovation in this regime and how attempts to patent ayurvedic medical products may change this South Asian medical practice.

Murphy Halliburton is Professor of Anthropology at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY) specializing in medical anthropology, psychological anthropology, science and technology studies, and South Asian ethnography. He has conducted research in India on ayurvedic medicine, treatments for psychopathology, the Indian pharmaceutical sector, and struggles over drug patents. He is the author of Mudpacks and Prozac: Experiencing Ayurvedic, Biomedical, and Religious Healing (Routledge, 2009) and India and the Patent Wars: Pharmaceuticals in the New Intellectual Property Regime (Cornell University Press, 2017).

Please click here for the readings.

Association of Asian Studies meetings in Denver.

But be happy and look ahead:

on March 24-27, 2022

AAS meeting is in Hawaii !!!  🙂 

The Global Asia Colloquium

 Spring 2019. Fridays, 4:00-6:45. With Wine and Cheese.  (unless otherwise indicated) we meet in 701 KJCC (53 Washington Square South). Come One and Come All !!

1 November.  Subah Dayal (Tulane), “Elegies to the Port: Surat and Vengurla in the Persianate imaginary

Abstract:  Recent revisions in maritime history have urged shifting our attention from the world of commerce and trade in Indian Ocean port-cities (largely examined through European-language archives) to exploring them as nodes of intellectual exchange (studied through chronicles, treatises, and administrative documents in Persian and Arabic). This paper will turn to a kindred body of Persianate materials, namely in the pan-regional literary idiom of Dakkani Urdu, that memorialized the lifecycle of two port-cities in the seventeenth century – Surat in Mughal Gujarat and Vengurla in the Deccan on the Konkan coast. It will investigate how regional vernacular poet-historians in inland courts, who had never visited the port-city, attempted to make sense of its rise, fall, and destruction.

In doing so, regional literati largely ignored the presence of European actors, so often heralded in scholarship as keepers of these gateways to the seas. Vernacular poets understood port-cities as critical sites where local, regional, and imperial sovereignties intersected and were bitterly contested, negotiated, and redefined. Formulating new narratives that connected maritime and agrarian power, seventeenth-century actors plotted contestations between the Deccan sultans, the Mughals, and the Marathas over Surat and Vengurla onto a wider canvas of contentious politics.  Entering the story of maritime power from a different textual register – vernacular poetic memories of the port-city –  allows us to connect the study of Persianate literary cultures with Indian Ocean social history. Rather than viewing these nodes merely as sites of commercial exchange, we may then unearth what the early modern port-city meant to contemporary non-European observers, who never passed through it, but were deeply aware of its role in transforming the social and economic world of the western Indian Ocean.

During this Spring 2019 semester, we will use various Colloquium formats to cultivate emerging collaborative research conversations, which we will develop further at three Global Asia conferences to be held in the second year of our “Port City Environments” program: in New York (May 25-26), Shanghai (August 27-29), and Abu Dhabi (January 2020).

All Colloquium meetings will be at our normal day/time, Friday 4:00-6:45 p.m.  But locations and formats will vary. Stay tuned for details. 

On 1 Feb, 4-6:45, we meet as usual in Room 701, King Juan Carlos Center, 7th Floor, 53 Washington Square South, with wine and cheese!

COME ONE AND COME ALL !!!

This Colloquium will be a research workshop with papers to read in advance, featuring short presentations on dissertation research by Devika Shankar (Princeton), Chandana Anusha (Yale), and Ayesha Omer (Steinhardt), with discussion led by Jerome Whitington (Gallatin). 

Workshop Title:

Building Between Land and Sea:

Nature, Infrastructure and Development in South Asia

Focusing on distinct trade and energy development projects from across South Asia, this workshop will examine the ways in which infrastructure networks have shaped and been shaped by dynamic coastal and desert ecologies and shifting political configurations. While probing the nature of technological interventions attempted and executed through these projects, this workshop will also shed light on the commercial and financial linkages underpinning these interventions. At a time when infrastructures have increasingly been at the center of concerns surrounding climate change, this workshop utilizes close case studies to illuminate new forms of political and economic power that are emergent in projects with uncertain physical and political boundaries.

Here are abstracts. 

Devika Shankar. “A Coast of Curiosities: Changing Perceptions of Nature and the Development of Cochin’s Harbour (1860-1900)   

       The story of Cochin’s emergence as the last major port in British India in 1936 has come to be told, like most narratives of port development, as a simple tale of technology’s triumph over nature. But the controversial decision to open up Cochin’s harbour through a grand harbour development project was taken after more than half a century of prolonged discussions focused on the port’s unique and anomalous environment. As the only natural harbour on the Malabar coast, Cochin derived much of its importance from its physical environment.  In the late 19^th century, Cochin’s dependence on its natural environment increased following the discovery of a mudbank next to the harbour. This mysterious mudbank, which could remarkably calm choppy waters during the monsoons allowed Cochin to emerge as an all weather port for the very first time. Simultaneously, however, Cochin’s very existence began to be threatened when coastal erosion started inexplicably assuming unprecedented proportions around the harbour. How did these conflicting perceptions of Cochin’s physical environment—at once both advantageous and menacing—critically affect the port’s commercial fortunes? Through a focus on the hopes and fears generated by two very different environmental factors—the mudbank with its tranquilizing properties on the one hand, and the ever-encroaching sea on the other—this paper will examine how changing perceptions of nature affected the conceptualization of the port’s built environment in the last decades of the 19^th century.   

SPRING COLLOQUIUM SCHEDULE

(Draft 16 Dec 2018)

Week 1. 1 Feb

Devika Shankar (Princeton),
Chandana Anusha (Yale),
Ayesha Omer (Steinhardt)
and others.
Port City Development Workshop

Week 2. 2/8/2018 @ Ireland House

David Riemers. NY Immigration City Project
Book Launch: All the Nations Under Heaven: Immigrants, Migrants, and the Making of New York

Week 3. 15 Feb

Nidhi Mahajan (UC Santa Cruz),
Prita Meier (IFA, Art History)

Week 4. Feb 22. @Institute for Public Knowledge. 20 Cooper Square. 5th Floor, 4-6PM

11th Annual NYU Global South Asia conference (22-23 Feb, 2019)
Global Asia Panel: “Spaces of Mobility in Southern Asia.”
Neelam Khoja, Rishad Choudhury, Ayesha Omer.

Week 5. 3/1/2018 No Meeting
No Meeting History Department Prospective Students’ Day

Week 6. 3/8/2018 @ Ireland House

Our NYU Global Asia Annual Conference

Imperial Connections (All Day)

Week 7. Week 15 Mar

Sunil Amrith (Harvard)

Week 8. 22 March
no Meeting Spring Break and AAS in Denver

Week 9. 29 Mar

Barry Flood (IFA, Art History) “Architecture as Archive: India, Ethiopia and a Twelfth-century World System”

Week 10. 5 Apr

Gyan Prakash ( Princeton), Book Launch for Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy’s Turning Point

Week 11. 12 Apr

Barry McCarron (Irish Studies)

Week 12. 19 Apr

Heather Streets Salter (Northeastern) WW1 in SE Asia.

Week 13. 26 Apr

Eric Tagliacozzo (Cornell),
Johan Mathew (Rutgers)

Week 14. 3 May

Beatrice Manz (Tufts) Mongol Conquest of Iran

Week 15. 10 May

Murphy Halliburton (Queens College CUNY) India and Global Pharma

GLOBAL ASIA COLLOQUIUM

Friday, December 14

Heather Lee, “Port City New York–Digitizing Immigrant Histories”

and

Jerome Whitington, “Port Cities and Climate Change: Lessons from Thailand’s 2011 Catastrophic Flooding”

4:00-6:45 p.m. in 701 KJCC
7E, Seventh Floor
(53 Washington Square South)
with wine and cheese!

COME ONE AND COME ALL !!!