Seminars

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title: Complex World Order & Rising India: Negotiating Difficult Times Title: Positioning India in the Indo-Pacific Security Dilemma Moderated by Prof. R P Pradhan, Dept. Humanities and Social Sciences K K Birla Goa Campus  

 2022 

 

Title: Constructing vernacular literary languages and traditions in northern India

About the Speaker: Imre Bangha is Associate Professor of Hindi at the Oriental Institute at the University of Oxford where he teaches elementary Hindi, modern Hindi, Urdu literary texts and Bengali. His research interests include old Hindi poetry, cultural encounters between India and Hungary, and the global reception of Rabindranath Tagore.

Date: 22 January, 2019; Time: 14:30-15:30; Venue: A-505

Abstract of the lecture: In this talk I will examine how language is conceptualised against dialect and examine the role of literary idioms in creating localised and transregional vernaculars. After discussing the ideas of language area, patois, literary idiom, diglossia, multilingualism, language build-up, koeneisation and vernacularisation, the talk will examine the vernacular scene in second-millennium north India, a territory stretching from modern-day Gujarat to Bengal. We can distinguish two models of vernacularisation roughly covering the regions with which Shauraseni and Magadhi Prakrit and Apabhramsha are associated with. While the influential research by Sheldon Pollock proposed a single model of vernacularisation originating from royal courts and then diffusing into wider regions, I will present the importance of mercantile and other networks in creating and maintaining transregional vernaculars, including the early forms of Hindi and Gujarati.

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Title: The Phases and Guises of Sri Lankan Fiction in English

Speaker: Prof. Senath Walter Perera, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Date: 11 February 2019 (Monday); Time: 10 A.M.; Venue: A-506

About the Speaker: Senath Walter Perera, Senior Professor in English, University of Peradeniya, has published extensively on Sri Lankan, Diasporic, and Postcolonial Literature in English. Perera was Chair of the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia), Member of the Jury for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and Articles Editor for Postcolonial Text. He is the Chairperson of the Sri Lanka chapter of the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS). Perera also chairs the Gratiaen Trust which administers the Gratiaen Prize for Sri Lankan Writing in English which was established by Michael Ondaatje.

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Title: Poverty alleviation programs in South Asia and Latin America: how the governments provided public goods in order to set up inclusive states (2000-2015)

Speaker: Prof. Enrique Vásquez, Professor of Economics, Universidad del Pacífico, Lima, Peru and Visiting Research Fellow, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI) @ Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Spain

Date: 12^th February 2019 (Tuesday); Time: 12:00-13:00; Venue: A-601

About the Speaker: Enrique Vásquez H. is an economist with degrees from the Universidad del Pacífico (Lima, Perú) and the University of Oxford (UK).  He has been the University Director and a socio-economic researcher with 30 years of experience in teaching, lecturing, applied research, management, advising governments, and serving as a consultant to top firms, international organizations, and NGOs. He is the author/editor of 40 specialized publications. He has spoken at international forums in 41 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa

Abstract: During the 2000-2015 period, most Latin American and South Asian countries experienced relatively high rates of economic growth. In parallel, their poverty rates reduced significantly. Although economic growth by itself is an important variable when discussing poverty -because of its ability to promote decent jobs for the heads of less qualified households, the redistributive role of the State is equally important to attain more equitable and inclusive societies. Generally, this role is embodied in poverty alleviation programs (PAPs), whose main goal is to relief temporarily problems that affect the poor groups left outside because of the economic model implementation with the provision of public goods. This paper focuses on the experience of the above-mentioned countries regarding the implementation and effectiveness of PAPs.  Employing a life-cycle approach to classify PAPs properly, we evaluate, compare and obtain lessons from both continents’ countries regarding six important aspects of the development of the programs: how to identify beneficiaries, supply chain management of public goods, systems of information, education and training, the monitoring and evaluation systems, the process of graduation of final recipients, and institutional coordination. From this analysis we obtain six important lessons for the implementation of new PAPs and the improvement of existing ones. 

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2018

Title: Italy by Way of India: Routes of Devotional Knowledge in the Early Modern Period

Speaker: Prof. Erin E. Baney, Professor of Renaissance and Baroque Art, Department of Art History and Art , Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

Date: 30 January 2018

Abstract: Travel between the vying reliquary sites of St. Thomas Apostle in Chennai, India and Ortona, Italy, ruptured narrative continuity in the formation of his European cult while simultaneously fostering a thriving Indian culture of ‘Thomas Christianity.’ The arrival of missionaries and merchants from Italy and Portugal during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries further complicated Thomas Christianity and resulted in the production of objects that merge Christian and Hindu iconographies in ways that are here elucidated for the first time. This talk thus sheds light on a little-studied chapter in the history of cultic devotion outside the conventional geographic parameters of the Renaissance and suggests an important instance of transcultural exchange during the early modern period.

 

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Title: Rethinking Popular Genres: Technology, Class Radicalism and Biopower 

Speaker: Prof. Kaushik Bhaumik, Associate Professor of Cinema Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU

Date: 20 February 2018 (Tuesday), 11 AM

Abstract: In his 1975-76 College the France Lecture Michel Foucault provided a genealogy for the origins of biopower (the control of the biological capacities of populations as the goal of the state) in the discourse of Race War invented in French historiography of the 16th and 17th c. Racism based on eugenic ideas of perfect bodies as constituting the healthy nation/state is at the heart of biopower. This purity is constituted and maintained by technologies and techniques of modern science that the state takes over to control populations. The paper seeks to argue that while Foucault's development of the idea of biopower and his idea of governmentality that modulates biopower were developed by looking at government policy and texts by ideologues, biopower is a concept that functions only when internalized by populations as part of its political ambitions. The workings of ideas of biopower within populations however can best be understood by studying modern popular genre (fiction or media) that are all dedicated to ideas of the normal and the deviant. Next, they are defined by their obsession with technologies and techniques of modern life- be it the detective novel, science fiction, romance, horror or pornography. Finally, they are dedicated to iconic goal-oriented action that biopower is all about. The paper then goes on to argue that when we study the workings of biopower in popular text production we see that the ideology of Race War is now mutated into a battle over the management of biopower between state policy and the technocratic middle class whose ideology is best represented in modern popular genre texts. Modern genre is a medium of ideological radicalism of this class (now made 'official' with the ascent of genre fiction to the echelons of high fiction). These genres are therefore ambiguous entities expressing on the one hand the middle class's technocratic Utopian idealism and on the other its divided self in matters of collaborating with the state and corporation in its quest for historical redemption (figures such as the double agent, Christian Grey or the hacker are constitutive of such ambiguity). My argument is that a study of popular genre modernity produces a far more ambiguous picture of matters governmental than Foucault's archival method does which in the end remains as gridded in binaries as governmental talk is. The paper will conclude by briefly looking at how genre forms the foundation for current Social Media and New Media behaviour. Here, we see in something like Blue Whale (where life has become popular genre action and is enacted live on media) as indicating where Race War as Class War-in-technology has reached in our times. Extinguishing life is a negation of state biopower diktats and children doing it live to a global public is sending some kind of message about the tensions at the heart of Race War today.

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Title: Climate Resilience Planning in the Forest Sector in Meghalaya

Speaker: Dr. Rajiv Kumar Chaturvedi

Date: 06 September 2018; Time: 10.30-11.30 AM

Venue: Director's Conference Room

Abstract: Meghalaya is a forest rich state and forms part of the Indo-Myanmar global biodiversity hotspot. Forests in Meghalaya are currently experiencing a variety of stresses, including both anthropogenic and natural. Dr. Rajiv Kumar Chaturvedi will speak about a recent project which aimed to create datasets and a conceptual framework for resilience planning for the forests in the state. Following the Climate Risk Assessment Framework from IPCC (2014), ‘vulnerability’ was used as a lever to conceptualise ‘climate resilience’. Bio-physical vulnerability of the forests in the state is assessed based on satellite datasets for the last 16 years (2000-2016) and one-time collection of field based measurements from 180 plots across the state. While integration of socio-economic vulnerability is not yet achieved, we aim to do this in future. This study finds that the current vulnerabilities of the forest systems in Meghalaya arise from forest disturbances, fragmentation, patchiness, low biodiversity, and precarious mountain slopes. This study further finds that the fragmented and isolated forests in low biodiversity areas are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change as well. Thus we argue that strengthening the structure and composition of forests, and augmenting the biodiversity, will not only manage current vulnerabilities and weaknesses of the forest systems in the state but at the same time will also make the forests more resilient to future climatic shocks.

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Title: A Comparative study of Perceived Discrimination, Islamic Worldview and Religious personality among Hijabi and Non Hijabi Muslim women in India

Date: 27 September; Time: 10.30-11.30 AM; Venue: Director's Conference Room 

Speaker: Hajara Abdul Hameed (Research Scholar, Dept of HSS, BITS Pilani Goa) 

Abstract: The present study was conducted to assess the perceived discrimination and Islamic worldview and religious personality of Muslim students who do (Hijabi) and do not wear (Non Hijabi) the Hijab. A total sample of 120 Muslim female Indian students belonging to the age group 18-24 participated in the study. The total sample was divided into two groups of 60, one group of whom wearing Hijab and the other who do not wear Hijab. Purposive sampling was used and snowballing technique enhanced the easy collection of data. The tools used were NLAAS Everyday Discrimination Scale and Muslim Religiosity-Personality Inventory. Data were analyzed using independent sample ‘t’ test and Pearson product moment correlational analysis. Results revealed that students who wear the Hijab perceive higher discrimination and also has a higher Islamic religiosity than those who do not wear the Hijab. The results for correlation reveal that there is no correlation between Islamic religiosity and perceived discrimination.

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2017

Title: Manufacturing the Marvels and Wonders of “Hindoostan” in the Gilded Age: The 1893 Chicago Exposition and The Parliament of Religions

Speaker: Dr. Nilak Datta

Date and time: 28^th January 2017 (Saturday), 10:00 - 11:00; Venue: Conference Room

Abstract: Theorizations of the postcolonial have been heavily influenced by the Subaltern Studies Project in the 1980s and the 1990s. After revisions in Indian historiography were made by Ranajit Guha from the late 1970s, especially with his focus on the “politics of the people”, Subaltern Studies was joined to the concerns of Postcolonial Studies. This newly merged stream with its emphases on discourse analyses and cultural studies oriented methodologies began to ignore or sideline the original concerns of Ranajit Guha’s focus on the history of Indian nationalism. Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), a foundational text for postcolonial studies, has often been used to explain cultural encounters where colonized peoples were subject to disciplinary formations of knowledge that were formulated by westerners. Said’s idea that colonizers’ knowledge of the East was not innocent, because it was related to the hegemonic status of those who produced it, has often used by scholars to write about “postcolonial” India. In the rush to talk about the postcolonial condition, scholars have often left aside the way cultural politics of late 19^th century American institutions helped construct “Hindoostan” through an institutionalized tourist gaze. This paper takes up the cultural politics of the 1893 Exposition and the World’s Parliament of Religions (held in Chicago) to show how “Hindoostan” was understood as a “nation” through the eyes of Euro-American tourists. “Hindoostan” became a metonymic substitute for a state of static, non-evolutionary presence whose characteristics could be understood after being subject to the collective Euro-American tourist gaze. This paper argues that such a focus is crucial to understanding the post-independence shift in India’s image from an erstwhile Third World nation to a global trading partner.

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Title: Critical pedagogies and the scholarship of engagement: how can science and technology promote social justice?

Speaker:  Dr. Fernando Fernandes, Researcher at the University of Dundee, Scotland

Date, Time & Venue: 10^th February 2017; Time: 05:15 – 06:15 pm; Venue: LT-1

Abstract: In this presentation I want to explore the public role of universities in society. Most specifically, I want to discuss the impact of market-driven approaches to higher education, and the need to preserve universities as public goods that are central to democracy. On top of this, I shall consider the potential of some pedagogical approaches to enhance the public impact of universities and explore how science and technology can contribute to this. At the end of my presentation I will offer practical examples of projects and interventions to engage staff and students in community collaborative work.

 

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Title:  The ‘pedagogy of monstrosity’ and the challenges to promote a ‘pedagogy of co-existence’ in the city

Speaker:  Dr. Fernando Fernandes

Time & Venue: 11^th February (Friday), 2017, 05:15 – 06:15 pm, LT-1

Abstract: Stigmatising social representations are driving forces used to justify oppressive practices and to maintain unbalanced structures of power. The symbolic annihilation of marginalised groups are used to justify policies and practices that address market needs while reinforcing inequalities and social injustice. In this presentation I want to explore how a ‘pedagogy of monstrosity’ function in the urban environment and what can be considered to promote a culture of co-existence in the city. I will use the empirical example of Rio de Janeiro where social tensions involve the militarization of urban security and the criminalisation of the poor.

 

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Title: Mars: Age old song about the home of the brave

About the Speaker: Dilip D’Souza is a Mumbai-based writer and journalist who writes on social and political causes. His columns have appeared in The Sunday Observer, Rediff.com, Outlook, Mid-Day, The Hindustan Times, The Caravan and other publications. He did a B.E. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani and an M.S. in Computer Science from Brown University. After working in the U.S. as a software engineer, he returned to India to write full-time. He has authored books on the denotified tribes of India, the Narmada Dam Project, the cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, the hockey player Dhyan Chand, and the public health speacialist and activist Binayak Sen. D’Souza has won several awards for his writing, including The Daily Beast Award for South Asian commentary, the Statesman Rural Reporting Award, the Times of India/Red Cross Prize, the Outlook/Picador Nonfiction Prize, and the Sanctuary Magazine Prize.

Date and time: 23^rd March (Thursday), 10:00 – 11:00; Venue: Conference Hall

Abstract of the talk: In the late 2020s, if certain plans hold, four humans will leave Earth to travel to Mars. It will be a one-way journey, because these four people will be going there to stay. They will have the task of establishing a colony on that planet.

One of those humans might just be a student of computer science in Florida, Taranjeet Singh Bhatia. This ambitious project is called Mars One. To succeed, it will need to face and solve all manner of serious technological challenges. Naturally, it attracts its share of both intense scepticism and immense wonder. But it has also got Bhatia thinking in directions even he did not anticipate. That unexpected introspection is at the core of this ongoing story of science, hubris, exploration and the human spirit.

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Title:  Environmental Art and Technology

Speaker:  Dr. Subodh Kerkar, Founder Museum of Goa
Date: 09 August 2017; Time: 3.00 - 4.00pm; Venue: L T4

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Title: Feeling beyond the Person: Affect in Cinema

Speaker: Prof. Moinak Biswas, Professor, Dept. of Film Studies, Jadavpur University

Date:  2 November 2017

Abstract: The lecture explores the potential of cinema to go beyond the person in creating emotions. The dominant mode of filmmaking and film viewing everywhere privilege the person so far as consciousness and emotions are concerned. We think and feel through individual characters. But some of the most powerful moments in cinema have been created around what Indian aesthetic philosophers call ‘ownerless emotion’, emotions that do not depend on the individual but seem to belong to the space, to an ‘akasha’ or ‘sky’. The lecture will use examples from Indian cinema and introduce concepts from Indian aesthetic theory and the film philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to explain such alternative ways of creating emotions.

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2016

Title: Subjects of Modernity

Speaker: Prof. Saurabh Dube

Date and Time: 13 January, 3- 4 p.m.

 

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Title: CHAT ROOMS AND CLASS ROOMS: Technology, Teachers, Education & the Evolution of English in 21^st century India

Speaker: Prof. Rukmini Bhaya Nair, IIT, Delhi

Date & Time: 4th February 2016 (Thursday), 14:30 - 15:30

 

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Title:  Intersection of Digital Media with Print Publication
Speaker: Ravi Shankar

Date and Time: Friday   05 Feb. 2016; 10.30 am   Venue: Conference Room

About the Speaker: Ravi Shankar is the founding editor and Executive Director of Drunken Boat [http://www.drunkenboat.com], one of the world’s oldest electronic journals of the arts. He has published or edited ten books and chapbooks of poetry, including "Autobiography of a Goddess," some Tamil translations of Andal, the 8th century poet/saint, "Union" an anthology of the best of Singaporean literature over the last 50 years, and a book of collaborative poems called "What Else Could it Be." He also authored the 2010 National Poetry Review Prize winner, "Deepening Groove" called the "work of one of America's finest younger poets," and the finalist for the 2004 Connecticut Book Awards, "Instrumentality". Along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he edited W.W. Norton’s "Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East & Beyond," called “a beautiful achievement for world literature” by Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer. He has won a Pushcart Prize, been featured in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Financial Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education, appeared as a commentator on the BBC, the PBS Newshour and NPR, received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Corporation of Yaddo and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and has performed his work around the world. He is currently Chairman of the Connecticut Young Writers Trust, and on the faculty of the first international MFA Program at City University of Hong Kong.

Abstract: Drunken Boat, one of the world's oldest electronic journals of the arts, celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2015. In that time, the journal has published more traditional forms of representation, like poetry, prose and photography, alongside works of art endemic to the medium of the web, such as hypertext, sound, video, digital animation and web art. The journal has also done significant archival work, digitizing interviews with Norman Mailer, course material from the Black Mountain School, drafts of poems by Pulitzer Prize winning poet William Meredith and drafts of drawings by late American artist Sol LeWitt. Founding editor Ravi Shankar will discuss how the paradigm of publishing shifts online and will showcase some of the award-winning works from the journal. Drunken Boat also has begun to publish books, and Shankar will discuss the intersection of digital media with print publication, and where he sees publishing going in the future. 

 

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Title: A Tribute to Bal Chandra Luitel

Speaker: Dr. Jose Carlos Oliveira

Date & Time: 05 Feb. 2016; 11.30 am 

Abstract: This presentation reflects on the work of Dr. Bal Chandra Luitel from the University of Katmandu and is a tribute to India as a mathematics land. Between Jantar Mantar, Rangoli and Ramnujan India connected eloquently her style in mathematics to philosophy and religious culture; Advaita, Vedanta and Zen. The presentation shall draw on a few presentation of Bal Chandra in the week following the dramatic earthquake in Nepal and will raise a few questions connecting Goa with the 20^th century.  

 

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Topic: Medical Machines in Language-Speech Assessment

Speaker: Prof. Feda Yousef Al-Tamimi, Associate Professor of Linguistics and Speech Sciences at Jordan University of Science and Technology

Date, Time and Venue: 15 March 2016, Tuesday, 5 pm;   Room: LT1

Abstract: Experimental clinical phonetics is a flourishing science that uses clinical machines to have a clear image of how human speech sounds are produced. Using imaging or neurological examination machines shows what organs of speech are involved in different speech sounds and what muscles are activated during their production. Nasoendoscopy, videoflurouscopy, electromyography are what a team of researchers usually use in this regard. With a group phoneticians, speech-language therapists, clinicians and radiologists we collect data, describe normal sounds production and understand speech disorders in Arabic. The talk will highlight the approach of what experimental clinical phonetics and shed light on three experiments done by experts at Jordan University of Science and technology.

 

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Title: Who owns Minerals? How could they be managed? The Goenchi Mati Proposal

Date and time: 28th Sep. 2016 (Wednesday) at 5:15-6:15 pm; Venue: LT-3

Speaker: Mr. Rahul Basu who was ex-CFO, Firstsource Solutions Ltd; co-founder, Kokum Design and Founder & CEO, Ajadé and is now a member of Goa Foundation; Mines, Minerals & People (mm&P); India Network for Basic Income (INBI) and the Goenchi Mati Movement. He has published on the topic in the Economic & Political Weekly: "Implementing Intergenerational Equity in Goa" and "Catastrophic Failure of Public Trust: Cast Study of Goa".

Abstract: Over the past few decades, mining and the export of India's minerals has become a highly contentious enterprise. Questions about social justice, environmental degradation and loss of state revenue continue to be raised. This talk will reflect on data about iron ore extraction, export and revenue in Goa in order to first get a sense of the current state of mining in the state and thereafter to put forth an alternative strategy for the management of this resource called the Goenchi Mati Proposal. The case of iron ore mining is an empirical case through which, it is hoped, will prompt similar questions and analysis about the management of all of the country's minerals. For more about the Goenchi Mati Proposal. see: http://goafoundation.org/gmpf/

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2015

 

Title: Socratic Seminar: The Moral Limits of Markets

Speaker: Atul Singh has a Masters in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University and a triple major in Finance, Strategy and Entrepreneurship from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He the founder and editor-in-chief of Fair Observer (http://www.fairobserver.com/), a global media platform that focuses on analysis and a "plurality of perspectives" from around the world.

Date: 27th January 2015; Venue: LT-2; Time: 6pm onwards 

Abstract: In ancient Greece, Socrates used questions to arrive at some understanding of truth. India has the tradition of "shastrarth" in which meaning is derived from discussion. The idea of a Socratic Seminar is to come to an understanding through questioning. Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel wrote The Moral Limits of Markets that has since become famous. This discussion uses Sandel's title as a starting point for a discussion that involves questioning fundamental ideas. What are markets? What are limits? What is morality? This will be the first Socratic Seminar in India and you are all invited to an evening of questioning, learning and fun.

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Title: Technological Nihilism: Gandhi and Heidegger

Speaker: Mr. Anoop George, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT-Bombay

Date and Time: 29^th January 2015 (Thursday), 11:00 - 12:00

Abstract: By technological nihilism is meant the phenomenon of the loss of meaning with the rise of the technological civilization. The presentation will focus on the discourse of technological nihilism in Gandhi and Heidegger. Gandhi’s critique of technology speaks to us concerning the dehumanization of the human being when entrenched in technological civilization, a dehumanization that propels her/his greed, avarice and arrogance. The dehumanized modern, in Gandhi’s critique, dominates nature through technological means and dominates the other through militarization and war. For Heidegger, modern western civilization understands being itself technologically, and so the comportment of the modern human person towards herself, others and nature operates at the level of calculation, organization and utility. Heidegger, unlike Gandhi, is not a moralist who would prescribe a way out of this situation, because, for him, transformation of ontological understanding is not an event decided only by human beings but an event that unfolds in the realm of mutual engagement between humans and being. Heidegger’s philosophy does evoke a moral critique of modernity and technology which Gandhi consciously engages in. Both of them are prophets who want to re-establish grounds for lost meaning.

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Title: Worth of a Film Star

Speaker: Prof. S. V. Srinivas, Azim Premji University and Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society

Date and Time: 28^th February 2015 (Saturday), 16:00 - 17:00

Abstract: These days there is much talk of commercialization of the media and transformation of news into a commodity. What is often ignored in the course of this lamentation is the rather puzzling fact that an overwhelming proportion of media enterprises lose money. The cash-burners include 400 odd news channels on Indian television of which less than 10 make a profit or even break even. How do we make sense of this scenario in which the media is indeed highly commercialized but no one is apparently making profits? I examine a similar problem thrown up by film stars in general and south Indian film stars in particular to draw attention to the a) the complex economics of film and other media industries and b) the intimate linkages between economics and politics in these industries. I conclude by suggesting that cultural commodities pose an interesting set of problems for researchers when we pay attention to the interplay of economic value and meanings that they simultaneously generate.  

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Title: Globalisation, Development and the Metabolic Rift

Speaker: Prof. Barbara Harriss-White

Date and time: 19^th March 2015 (Thursday), 11:00 - 12:00

Abstract: The metabolic rift describes the relation between the relatively short extractive cycles of the economy and the very long cycles involved in the creation and restitution of natural resources. This rift is now globalised and so acute that nature is failing in both its long-cycle roles. Responses that focus on politically chosen goals for limiting climate change (‘2 degrees’) reduce to one dimension a set of processes that has many dimensions and calls for a far wider set of changes. The main political response – international ‘deals’ for collective action by countries to limit the output of greenhouse gases  - is shown to be not only reductionist but also a discursive tower of babel  involving more procrastination than serious will to act. The lecture will outline the (sometimes surprising) responses not so much of countries as of the most powerful economic actors on the planet in terms of the way they see the crisis, how urgent they are, and what they are doing or proposing to do.

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Title: The “Frontier” and the American Imagination: A Retrospective View

Speaker: Prof. Amritjit Singh, Langston Hughes Professor of English, Ohio University & Visiting Fullbright-Nehru Professor of English, Delhi University (2014-15)

Date and time: 16^th April 2015 (Thursday), 11:00 - 12:00; Venue: Conference Room

Abstract: In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner bemoaned the “closing” of the American frontier – the disappearance by the 1890s of cheap, fertile and accessible lands out West. He wondered what would happen to the American people, American democracy and the American character in the wake of such a loss, but he had no clear answers. In different ways, foundational American Studies texts such Henry Nash Smith’s Virgin Land (1950), R.W.B. Lewis’s The American Adam (1955) and Leo Marx, Machine in the Garden (1964) are built upon the “consensus history” signalled by Turner’s Frontier thesis in relation to the American experiment and its distinctive appeal, as well as the implicit “ideas of civilization, progress and Manifest Destiny.”

Through my presentation and in the pursuant conversations, we will, I hope, have an opportunity to (a) consider the revisionist views of both the Frontier as well as the American character and democracy that began to surface in the 1970s; (b) acknowledge the riffs and counter-narratives that had already appeared in the writings and careers of late 19^th-century and early 20^th-century figures such as Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Americo Paredes; (c) reference the new takes on the Frontier by contemporary novelists such as Ishmael Reed and E. L. Doctorow; and (d) examine the parallels between European colonialism and the American Empire – based on the scholarship of Amy Kaplan, Donald Pease, etc., and contextualized by Amritjit Singh and Peter Schmidt in the opening “Borders” essay in Postcolonial Theory and the United States (2000).

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Title: Discovering One’s Identity after Personal Encounters with the Divine in Three Amar Chitra Katha Comics and some Biblical Parallels

Speaker: Mrs. Layla Mascarenhas

Date and time: 30^th April 2015 (Thursday), 11:00 - 12:00

Abstract: This paper examines three stories in the Amar Chitra Katha comic series where the main character discovers his/ her identity after deep personal encounters with The Divine. In the comic book Mirabai, Mira develops a love relationship with her Divine Lord and this sets her free from the bonds of fear and convention. In The Gita, Arjuna faces a choice between his duty and his love for his extended family. Right on the battlefield of Kurukshetra he has a powerful encounter with the divine manifestation of Krishna. This encounter changes his whole outlook on life and who he is. In Chokha Mela, Chokha is despised and humiliated by society because of his caste status. However, when he encounters The Divine, he realizes his true dignity and how precious he is to The Lord. This paper discusses the nature of these faith-encounters and points to some parallels in Biblical literature.

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2014

Title: Contemporary Indian English Literature

Speaker: Prof. G.J.V. Prasad (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)

Date and time: 10th January 2014 (Friday), 15:00 - 16:00; Venue: L-202

About the Speaker: G.J.V. Prasad is Professor and former Chairperson, Centre for English Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is Vice Chair of the Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies. His major research interests are Contemporary Theatre, Indian English Literature, Dalit Writings, Australian Literature, and Translation Theory. Prasad is also a well-known Indian English poet and novelist – his novel A Clean Breast was short listed for the Commonwealth Prize for best first book from the Eurasia region in 1994, and his collection of poems, In Delhi without a Visa (1996) is considered a path-breaking volume. He is a recipient of the Katha award for translation from Tamil. He has co-edited with Sara Rai a collection of stories from Indian languages, Imaging the Other. His academic publications include the following books: Writing India, Writing English: Literature, Language, Location; Continuities in Indian English Poetry: Nation, Language, Form; and two edited volumes of critical essays, Vikram Seth: An Anthology of Recent Criticism, and The Lost Temper: Essays on Look Back in Anger. He has edited the Penguin (now Longman) Study Edition of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and also of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger. He has also written a book of recipes, South Indian Vegetarian Kitchen, published by Roli Books. He is the current editor of JSL, the Journal of the School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies, JNU.

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Title: Universities at the Crossroads and the Humanities at a Dead-End: What is the Way Forward?

Speaker: Mr. Amitendu Bhattacharya

Date: 28^th Jan. 2014 at 10:00

Abstract: My paper reviews the history of the establishment of University education in India—a classic colonial import—and examines its role in the present context of a globalized and postmodern world which is replete with dichotomies, contradictions and ruptures in the various spaces and processes of culture and society. I contend that the institutionalization of the teaching of the English language and the study of English literature in Modern India, along with the introduction of Western Science, was an act of dispossession which propagated Western values and naturalized colonialism by alienating an entire nation from its collective cultural past, and has, instead of integrating the diverse interests of society, brought all divisions to the fore. Moreover, the commercial and exploitative tendencies of the science and technology disciplines have dealt a body blow to the philosophical foundations of the humanities and the social sciences. Following the leads offered by the works of F.R. Leavis, Paul de Man and Jacques Derrida, I suggest that a possible solution to the overwhelming “technologico-Benthamite climate” of our world, too, lies within the precincts of the University which must act as an ultimate site for critical resistance against “all the powers of dogmatic and unjust appropriation.” I further argue that by strengthening and remodelling the humanities in general and by reconfiguring the boundaries of pucca English literature in particular, inequities of wealth and gender and social segregation may be bridged to a certain extent.

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Title: Interpersonal communication as a tool for effective hospital administration

Speaker: Meenakshi Raman, Professor of English and Communication, HoD, Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus

Date & Time: 11^th February 2014 at 10:00 a.m.

Abstract: Healthcare industry has been witnessing tremendous growth in India and in order to cope with the demands, the administrators of various healthcare services need to possess multitasking skills. For instance, the Chief Executive Officers and other administrators of hospitals are required to be equipped with decision making skills, problem solving skills, emotional intelligence, team playing skills and above all communication skills. As they are the people who serve as the face of their organizations, they need to project its positive image both within and outside. Interpersonal communication enables the hospital administrators to create, develop and sustain enduring relationships with their employees, customers and other external agencies. It acts as a link between the hospital administrators and the others with whom they need to interact and discuss with so as to transmit, interchange and persuade relevant messages. With the responsibilities covering a gamut of activities involving a large number of personnel in hospital administration, the interpersonal communication has become more and more important for the administrators. Interpersonal communication can be defined as the process of exchanging ideas, thoughts, feelings and courses of action through verbal and nonverbal means of communication. It generally involves face-to-face communication and is a two way process. Health-service delivery including its publicity, health communication, counseling and training are the major domains towards which the hospital administrators focus their efforts. The presenter attempts to bring out the importance of interpersonal communication in these domains and to suggest some strategies to enhance the effectiveness of the hospital administration.  

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Topic: Prospects and challenges of workplace communication.

Speaker: Mr.Blaise Costabir, MD, GMI Zarhak Moulders Pvt. Ltd., Goa

Date, Time and Venue: 20/2/2014; 4-5 pm; Room C404
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Title: On the Metaphysical Meaning of Major Religious Symbols for a Globalized World Speaker: Dr. U. A. Vinaya Kumar Rao

Date and time: 25th March 2014 (Tuesday), 10:00 - 11:00; Venue: Conference Room

About the Speaker:  Dr. U.A. Vinay Kumar is Associate Professor and currently heads the Department of Philosophy at Goa University. He has over 25 years of experience in Research and Teaching. His areas of Specialization include: Advaita Vedanta, Contemporary Indian Philosophy, Classical Indian Philosophy and Existentialism. His other areas of competence include: Indian Logic, Indian Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science, Epistemology and Metaphysics, Buddhist Philosophy, History of Western Philosophy and Social/Political Philosophy.

Abstract:  “Humanity is passing through a difficult phase— euphemistically called the “era of clash of civilizations”— that has the potential to wipe out the humanity from the face of the earth. At the root of the clash, surely are the ‘clashing religions’ or their ‘clashing ideas’. If a foundational synthesis, containing in it the metaphysical aspects that are universal — including different understandings of one’s own Self, the Universe, the God and the Absolute — can be provided then it may kindle a glimmer of hope for humanity’s survival, especially in a world that is getting  increasingly globalized.” 

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Title: The Social Costs of Ethical Journalism

Speaker: Mr. Sebastian Anthony Rodrigues

Date and time: 10th April 2014 (Thursday), 10:00 - 11:00

Abstract: Providing reliable and verified information for dissemination through media is an important responsibility of Journalism. There are however innumerable blocks that a journalist has to encounter before resolving ethical dilemmas. Blocks include self-censorship, corporate control of press, state co-option of media practitioners, etc. Succumbing to these blocks can hamper dissemination of truthful information that is needed for social, economic, ecological and political life of society. It takes huge social costs to uphold the ethical practice of fearless journalism. This presentation outlines the social costs involved in defending and maintaining ethical standards of journalism in Goa which the presenter will account from his personal experience from 1991 onwards. The presentation will cover the state’s attempt to muzzle the freedom of expression: when the Goa Legislative Assembly labelled his writings to be ‘naxalite writings’ – by the then Leader of the Opposition, and corporate attempts to silence free speech through a SLAPP litigation against him in the Calcutta High Court in 2009.

 

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Title: Underdevelopment, Alienation & Terrorism: A Narrative on India’s Development, Maoism and Red Corridor

Speaker: Dr. R P Pradhan

Date and time: 11 March 2014, 10:00 - 11:00

Abstract: “If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is   our sin.” - Charles Darwin

Four fundamental objectives guide the focus of this presentation.

1.      People Focus; They vs. US

2.      Land and laws of land to interrogate the correlation of alienation and insurgency in the context of India.

3.      Political economy of underdevelopment and the case and prospect of inclusive growth in the context of India.

4.      Political economy of terror management and its short and long range implication to development funding.

India has heavily paid and set to pay more in the coming years for having institutionally neglected real time development and compromising the laws of land in the tribal and peasant heart land where the Maoists of India have chalked out the country’s red corridor. Popularly known as the Naxalites or Maoists, they are fighting India and all its symbols from within with varying degree of success since 1967 for land, for justice, equity and against alienation.

The home grown Left Wing Extremism (CPI Maoists), striking India’s vulnerable underbelly in over 182 districts, 92,000 sq.km of mineral and forest reach areas of the country in nine States (provinces) of India threatens to be the biggest security challenge to India’s internal security paradigm today. If not contained, it is assessed that New Delhi shall fall to the Maoists by 2025. In the last five years alone, LWE has claimed over 9628 Incidents and 3780 deaths and 1476 economic installations being hit. Irony is, the Red Corridor is India’s richest mineral resource zone with poorest socio-economic and wellness indices. The Forest Act 1980 virtually dissociated tribal and traditional forest dependent communities from the forests. Subsequent corrective legislations like The Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act, 2006 have not delivered any result. As per official judicial reports, 3.75 lakh cases of alienation of tribal land by the non-tribals have been registered for restoration, covering 8.5 lakh acres of land which is a small fraction of the area of land actually alienated. Of these, only in 1.62 lakh cases, the claims were decided in favour of the tribals covering an area of 4.47 lakh acres while 1.55 lakh cases covering an area of 3.63 lakh acres have been rejected by the revenue courts on various grounds (GOI Judicial Records, 2010). 

Displaced from their land and discriminated against in the industrial job market, they are now fighting for their land, their only remaining resource. Their organizational net worth is estimated to be around Rs.20billion which is bigger than most of the affected states education budget and nearly matching India’s international security planned allocations. It is estimated that by 2020, India shall be biggest consumer of global home land security purchases – a cost perhaps is big enough to deliver real time development to the people of the region.

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Title: The Promises and Pitfalls of Tourism

Speaker: Dr. Anibel Ferus-Comelo

Date and time: 25th March 2014, 10:00 - 11:00

Abstract: Tourism has recently risen in priority within India’s national development policy with the explicit goal of increasing foreign exchange earnings and employment. The state government of Goa has been institutionalising and promoting luxury tourism on a massive scale as an industrial development strategy since the 1980s. Drawing on a number of empirical studies on tourism in Goa, the lecture will draw together the policies and practices of tourism management in conjunction with the principles of sustainable development in order to address the central question: Under what conditions can tourism fulfil the promises of development without the pitfalls?

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Title: Romanticism and Society

Speaker: Prof. Mohan Ramanan

Date and time: 21^st August 2014, 11:00 - 12:00

About the Speaker: Mohan G. Ramanan, Ph.D. (BITS Pilani), is Professor and former Head, Department of English, and former Dean, School of Humanities at the University of Hyderabad. He has held the British Council Fellowship for 1982-83 at Oxford University and was a Fulbright Scholar in Residence at Amherst College, Massachusetts in 1989-90, and at the University of Missouri in 2013. He specializes in Modern British and American Poetry and Indian Literature in English and has published extensively in these areas. He also served as Deputy Director of the Indo-American Centre for International Studies (formerly American Studies Research Centre). Ramanan is deeply involved with music and philosophy and his attempt has been to integrate these interests with literary studies.

 

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Title: ASEAN Plus & Plus: India's Look East Approach Through Tokyo

Speaker: Dr. R. P. Pradhan

Date and time: 4^th September 2014, 11:00 - 12:00

Abstract: South East Asia is driving the economic growth story of the 21st century.  United by trade and divided by nomenclature, the region is also fast experiencing both integration and isolation at the same time. Economic and trade structures like ASEAN; ASEAN plus Three; ASEAN plus Three plus Three; East Asian Community (EAC) or even ASEAN CEPA or Washington mooted eleven member Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) are notions of integration and expansion of Asia’s economic boundary and confluence of seas where the political boundaries are stretched to accommodate neoclassical interests. The region is undergoing a spectacular economic and geopolitical churning internally as well as externally. This is the first time in history; the region is struggling and strategizing to configure the shape and size of economic boundaries of the region along with a quest to define and redraw the geopolitical space that most suits the bilateral, multilateral, regional and extra regional stake holders.

While theoretically economic neoclassicism is driving the internal economic, trade, investment contours of the region; dominated by core regional powers and influenced by politico-economic interests of the extra regional powers, the region is politically stretching itself into a political neoliberal format of Asia-Pacific image and identity. Asia-Pacific neoliberal profile means, half of world’s population, half of world GDP and half of world trade- a mega international interest zone of the world where competing powers like China, Japan and India at the regional end and Australia, South Africa and the United States at extra regional end guide the parameter and perimeter of regional grouping. In this scenario of diversity, while rising China is incrementally demanding better share of the regions prosperity, India and Japan stand in the same side of the fence to compete and contain the regional forces and parameters. Washington’s TPP idea on the other hand expands the economic scope and definition of the region but isolates China politically. Four fundamental objectives guide the contours of this paper. First, the paper shall analyze the emerging economic structures of the region and their implication to regional political economy. Second, the paper will provide a theoretical construct of political realism to political neoliberalism and constructivism at one end and economic neoclassicism on the other to explain the regional paradigm shift. Third, the paper shall analyze the implication of Indo-Japan bilateralism and its implication to the regional economic and political climate and ‘Multipolar Consociational Model’ that appears to be taking shape in the region. Finally, building on the theoretical and empirical evidence, the paper shall conclude with a comprehensive prospects and challenges analysis of these neo-formations and the road ahead.

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Title: Grave Matters: A Reading of the “Discourse on Death”

Speaker: Mr. Amitendu Bhattacharya

Date and time: 20^th November 2014, 11:00 - 12:00

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Topic:  Naturalism and the South African novelist Alex La Guma

Date, Time and Venue: 22^nd April at 5:00 PM; Room No. LC 101

Speaker: Susan Z. Andrade is Associate Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, PA and is affiliated with the French and Italian department as well as with the programs in African Studies, Asian Studies, Cultural Studies, and Women’s Studies. Her book on gender politics, public sphere politics, and women’s literary traditions, The Nation Writ Small: African Fictions and Feminisms, 1958-1988, was published by Duke UP in 2011. She co-edited Atlantic Cross-Currents/Transatlantiques (Africa World Press, 2001) and guest-edited a special issue on comparative African fiction for the journal, NOVEL, in 2008. She is currently working on Realism (versus Modernism) in postcolonial literatures from Africa and South Asia. Andrade is specialist reader in postcolonial studies for the PMLA Advisory Committee. She is in India on a Senior Scholar Fulbright-Nehru Award. 

 

 

 

2013

Topic: Democracy, Civil Society, and Health in India

Speaker: Dr. Pushkar

Date & Time: 16th Nov 2013 at 10:00 a.m.

Abstract: Human development and health improvements in a nation—whether democratic or authoritarian—commonly come about through top-down interventions, bottom-up pressures or some combination of both. In India, bottom-up pressures for public services such as health, clean water and other health-related services are nearly absent. The seminar will explain: 1) why and how democracy provides 'enabling conditions' for claims for public services by civil society actors (i.e. bottom-up pressures) but 2) political freedoms are insufficient for such claims-making.

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Topic: A Conceptual Model: Multisensory Marketing and Destination Branding

Speaker: Mrs. Pinky Pawaskar R.

Date and time: 23 November 2013, 10.00 a.m.

Abstract: The present study conceptualizes a model based on Multisensory Marketing and how it can be used to enhance Destination Branding. The model illustrates the influence of the paradigm shift of mass marketing to personal marketing in the tourism industry. It integrates key sequential steps of Multisensory Marketing, Tourism Sectors, Customer satisfaction as a result of experience to the final outcome: Enhanced Destination Image. The paper also, discusses the relationship between customer experience, customer satisfaction and customer delight. The Destination branding model is a result of synthesis of literature from the fields of general branding, marketing, psychology and consumer behaviour.

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Title: Superfunds Fictionalized: An Eco-cosmopolitan Approach to Animal's People by Indra Sinha

Speaker: Ms. Heidi Danzl, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Salzburg, Austria

(Visiting scholar to BITS-Pilani, Goa Campus)

Date and time: 30^th November 2013, 10.00 a.m.

Abstract:  Dipesh Chakrabarty stated in a thought-provoking paper: “The Anthropocene, one might say, has been an unintended consequence of human choices.” How this global human agency is represented in literature within this contest is a major interest of eco-cosmopolitanism. This global approach to ecocriticism was developed by Ursula Heise, an ecocritic at UCLA. Animal's People (2007) by Indra Sinha (a fictionalized account of the Bhopal tragedy) serves as an example in her article in The Routledge Companion to World Literature (2012). Further ecocritical analyses of the novel, focusing on aspects of genre, i.e., spy novel, noir, private eye (Anthony Carrigan) or the picaresque (Rob Nixon) will be enriched by this paper.

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Talk: Role of Youth in  Development  and Nation building

Speaker: Shri. Armoogam Parsuramen, Chairman Global Rainbow Foundation, Mauritius, Ex. Minister of Education, Art & Culture, Mauritius(1983-1995), Ex. Director and Representative UNESCO (1998-2011)

Venue and date: LT 1;  21 January 2013; 5.10 pm

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