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December 2007
Newsletter- December 2007
[[CONTENTS]]
Announcement of Events
The Independent Fellowship Workshop
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Hindi Blog Writing Workshop
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Student Stipendship Workshop
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The Comix Workshop
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With winter setting in we plan to warm ourselves up with some passionate talks and discussions over hot cups of tea and coffee. We present a mélange of events ranging from serious to unconventional sharing of knowledge at the Independent Fellowship and Student Stipendship workshops to the inception of new thematic ideas at the blog writing and the comic book workshops.
Hope you will make yourself available for the events and access the particulars announced to you.
Best,
Mitoo Das
Programme Coordinator
Sarai, CSDS
Email me at: mitoo@sarai.net
Events:
Working Questions: the 2007 Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellowship Workshop
Dates: 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th December
Venue: Sarai and LTG Auditorium
Each year Sarai-CSDS’s unique fellowship programme gives grants for all kinds of practitioners—artists, performers, writers, filmmakers, working professionals and academics too—to pursue their own (sometimes serious, sometimes quirky) research projects. The results of this research can be applied in any direction and, in recent years, has eventually led to all kinds of things, from comic to public actions to films to books. This year, Sarai’s yearly Independent Fellowship workshop will be a special gala event, in the centre of town, looking back over the five years of the fellowship. It will feature presentations from this year’s Independent Fellows, who will be coming in from various corners of the country, as well as some previous recipients of the Fellowship. Expect an unconventional convention. Expect talks (both academic and non-academic), musical and theatrical performances, books, videos, listening booths, slide shows, arguments, dialogues, merriment and controversy. A special curated multimedia exhibition accompanies the events.
Monday 3 December
Venue: Sarai-CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, CSDS
6.00 – 10.00 pm
Opening Reception and Launch of Working Questions (the Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellowship Book)
Opening Remarks
by Professor Rajeev Bhargava
Director, CSDS
Reflecting on Five Years of the Sarai-CSDS Fellowship Programme
Shuddabrata Sengupta
Vivek Narayanan
Debjani Sengupta
Mahmood Farooqui
Tuesday 4 December
Venue: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House
10.30 – 12.00
History Versus Reminiscence
Chair: Debjani Sengupta
Anuja Ghosalkar
Papa Ajoba: My Grandfather, the Film Make Up Artist
Renee C. Lulam and Julius L. Basaiawmoit
Changing Faces of Democratic Spaces in Urban Cosmopolitan Shillong
Sugata Nandi
Eventful Adolescence, Memorable Youth: The Politics of Personal Reminiscence in Calcutta, 1947-1967
12.15 – 1.15
Proving Residence
Chair: Shveta Sarda
Ajit K. Dwivedi
Sealing ke Nazar Mein: Sealing Banam Pusta ka Visthapan (Media Study: Comparative Reporting on Land Ceilings and Displacement from Jamuna Pushta)
Bipul K. Pandey
The Residence Proof
1.30 pm – 2.30 pm
Sub-metropolitan Dreams
Chair: Iram Ghufran
Nalin Narain Mathur
B-Grade Engineering College Culture
Syed Zaigham Imam
Sapno ke Rail (The Train of Dreams: Narratives from the Allahabad-Jaunpur Passenger Train): a short documentary film
2.45 – 4.15
Hearing Spaces, Seeing Spaces
Chair: Aarti Sethi
Shahnawaz Khan
Entertainment Ghosts in Srinagar: A Tale of Cinema Halls in the City
Zubin Pastakia
A Photographic Study of Bombay’s Cinema Halls
Sayandeb Mukherjee
Corridors: An Exploration of Sound and Space
4.30—6.30 pm
Special Panel: The Past of Research and the Present of Practice
Featuring: TP Sabitha, Yousuf Saeed, Mahmood Farooqui and Rahaab Allana
Discussant: Shuddhabrata Sengupta
7.00—7.30
(In Upstairs Gallery Space)
Performance Art: “This Evening Too: From Lal Ded to Abdul Ahad Zargar”
by Inder Salim: Space limited to 25 persons only—first come, first serve.
Wed 5 December
Venue: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House
10.00 am – 11.30
Distant Communities
Chair: Ravikant
Surya Prakash Upadhyay
Guru on the Air: Televised Hinduism in Contemporary India
Neelima Chauhan
Blogit Hindi Jati ka Linkit Man: Blogon mein Hindi Hypertext ka Adhayayan (The World of Hindi Blogs)
Raman Jit Singh Chima
The Regulation of the Internet by the Indian State
11.45 – 1.15
In the Midst of Conflict I: Looking Back and Looking Ahead
Chair: Ravi Sundaram
Arvind Kumar
Caste Violence in Urban Maharashtra: A study of the 1974 Worli Riots in Mumbai and the Dalit Panthers Movement
P. Jenny and C. Christy
Chitralekha’s Burning Autorickshaw: Caste, Class and Gender in the Urban Space of Keralam
Meena Menon
Recovering Lost Histories: Riot Victims, the Communal Polarisation of Mumbai and Its Impact on People and Perceptions about Communities
11.00 – 11.30
(In Upstairs Gallery Space)
Short film on ragging—Listen, Little Man-- by Madhavi Tangella;
[See also discussion with Shivam Vij on Friday’s programme below.]
1.30 – 3.00
In the Midst of Conflict II: Reading Between the Column Inches
Chair: Sanjay Sharma
Shiju Sam Varughese
The Public Sphere as a Site of Knowledge Production: Science in the Malayalam Press
Alok Puranik
Bazaar Reporting in Hindi Newspapers
Shubhra Nagalia
The Representation of Communal Conflicts in Hindi Media: A Case study of the 2005 Mau Riots
3.15—4.45
Other Traditions
Chair: Priya Sen
Priya Babu
Traditions of the Aravani (Transgender) Community in Tamilnadu
Mithun Narayan Bose
Tracing Life from the Stroke: Documenting the Rickshaw-Painting of Kolkata Streets
Deepak Kadyan
Popular Musical Traditions and Configuration of Jat identity in Haryana, 1900-2000
5.30 – 6.00 pm
(In Upstairs Gallery Space)
Performance Art: “This Evening Too: From Lal Ded to Abdul Ahad Zargar”
by Inder Salim: Space limited to 25 persons only—first come, first serve.
7.00 – 8.15
(Back in main auditorium)
“Creeper”, a play written and directed by Ram Ganesh Kamatham, recasting the Vikram and Vetal myth in a contemporary urban setting. Featuring Mallika Prasad and Abhishek Majumdar.
Thurs 6 December
Venue: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House
10.00 am – 11.30
Medicine and Modernity
Chair: Awadhendra Sharan
Gyaltsen Lama
Shamans in Gangtok: A Graphic Novel
M.S. Harilal
Adopting Modernisation and Negotiating Modernisation: Placing Modern and Traditional Ayurvedic Sectors in the Context of Transformation
Burton Cleetus
Urbanisation, Western Medicine and Modernity: The Rockefeller Foundation in Travancore
11.00 – 11.30
(In Upstairs Gallery Space)
Short film on ragging—Listen, Little Man-- by Madhavi Tangella; see also discussion with Shivam Vij on Friday’s programme below.
11.45 – 12.45
Two Views of the Changing Industrial Landscape
(short documentary films & discussion)
Chair: Jeebesh Bagchi
Ranu Ghosh
The Story of a Laid-off Worker’s Resistance to Eviction in Kolkata
T. Venkat and Meghna Sukumar
Building the Indian Dream: Living and Working Conditions of Migrant Workers on Chennai's IT Corridor
1pm – 2pm
Tracking Literatures
Chair: Ravikant
Rajiv Ranjan Giri
Saraswati ki Sarvajanik Duniya, 1900-1920 (The Popular World of the Journal Saraswati, 1900-1920)
Gopal Ji Pradhan
Hindi mein Uttar Purv (The North-east in Hindi Literature)
2.15 –4.15
Special Panel: Where Does Research Go?
Featuring: Zainab Bawa, Parismita Singh, Madhavi Tangella and Prasad Shetty.
Discussant: Vivek Narayanan.
4.30 – 5.45 Work In “Progress”: Feature-length video by
2007 Sarai-CSDS Associate Fellow Debkamal Ganguly
6.15 – 6.45
(In Upstairs Gallery Space)
Performance Art: “This Evening Too: From Lal Ded to Abdul Ahad Zargar”
by Inder Salim: Space limited to 25 persons only—first come, first serve.
7.15pm – 8pm
Solo Performance: Pritham K Chakravarty
The Life of an Actor in Chennai’s Sabha Drama
Fri Dec 7
Venue: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House
10.00 – 11.00
Proofreading: Identity and Publishing
Chair: Mahmood Farooqui
Vijay Kumar Pandey
Meerut ka Prakasan Udyog (The Publishing Industry in Meerut)
Yoginder Sikand & Naseemur Rahman
Islamic Publishing Houses in Delhi
11.00 – 12.15
(In Upstairs Gallery Space)
Side Effects: Collaborations and Conversations Between Independent Fellows.
Short film on ragging—Listen, Little Man-- by Madhavi Tangella; discussion and commentary by Shivam Vij, who studied ragging for his Sarai-CSDS Fellowship. Introduced and moderated by Iram Ghufran
11.15 – 12.15
Maps for Lost Cities
Chair: Shuddhabrata Sengupta
Surojit Sen
The Displacement of Prostitutes: A Tale of Two Cities in Two Centuries
Mohit K. Ray & Soma Ghosh
Heritage Ponds of Kolkata: A Contemporary History
12.30 – 1.30
Rethinking the Social
Chair: Vivek Narayanan
Santana Issar and Aditi Saraf
Rethinking Animal Activism in an Urban Context
Arnab Chatterjee
Beyond Private and Public: New Perspectives on the Personal and Personalist in Social Work
1.45 pm – 3.45 pm
Special Presentation: The SARAI-CSDS Associate Fellowships
Nancy Adajania: A New Journal for the Arts: Prototype Issue, 2007
Debkamal Ganguly: An Imaginative Text Based on Contemporary Travel Through the “Forests” Described in Bibhuthibhushan’s Memoirs (see complete video by Debkamal Ganguly on previous day.)
Chair: Monica Narula
4.00 – 5.30 pm
Towards a Future for Independent Research: Interactive Open Discussion
7.00 – 8.30 Punches Ponytails Ringtones: Women Boxers in India
A film by Pankaj Rishi Kumar (82 mins)
Introduced by Shuddhabrata Sengupta
(A complete programme of the workshop which would include the abstracts and information about the participants will be sent out on a separate Sarai-Newsletter.)
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Hindi Blog Writing Workshop
Date: 11th December, 2007
Time: 2 to 5 pm
Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS
Today blogging has become an important tool of communication. Diverse things from ideas, analysis, critiques and memoirs to travelogues are all being written and shared through blogs. Blogs in Hindi are gradually becoming popular as writing in Hindi on the internet is no more a problem (there is a huge variety of tools to start with). But we still have to go a long way before Hindi blogs become much favoured and the drawback that we face at present is lack of knowledge among the public.
The Hindi Blog Writing Workshop at Sarai-CSDS is an attempt to involve people who are interested in blogging in the world of Hindi and would like to learn more.
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Sarai-CSDS Student Stipendship Workshop
Dates: 14th and 15th December, 2007
Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS
Every year Sarai provides studentship to conduct research on the city Life. These stipendships are provided to post graduate researchers enrolled in different academic programmes across the country. Apart from financial support, sarai conducts three workshops to discuss various aspects of research, provide a platform to share ongoing study with a wider community of urban researchers and practitioners and give critical inputs to help orient individual projects in a better manner.
This year, 20 stipendships were provided to researchers who come from a myriad range of disciplines and places. On 14-15th December 2007, they will be making public presentations on their nine months of research work.
A more detailed programme will be announced before the event.
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The Comix Workshop
Session I
Dates: 17th, 18th and 19th December
Venue: French Information and Resource Centre
2 Aurangzeb Road, New Delhi
It would be an understatement to say that comics in India have not had as flourishing a practice as cinema, literature and art. The public knowledge about the comic book practice and culture in India has often been limited to a few major publications and epic productions. Most of them have happened at least a decade ago, maybe more. And now that we stand on the threshold of what is being touted as the graphic novel/comic boom in India, a few questions stare at us.
How do we talk, in a public platform, about the hidden narratives that have contributed so immensely to the growth and evolution of the form in India? How do we popularize the discourse of comics in India? How do we know and share the knowledge pool that contributes to the comic book practice and readership in India?
In an attempt to address these questions, Sarai-CSDS and the French Information and Resource Center (FIRC) have collaborated to produce a series of events focusing on a deeper and richer conversation about the comic book culture in India. One such event is the Comic Book Workshop
The first session for the workshop will be taken by two French comic artists. Mathieu Sapin, Francois Mathieu Sapin and Francois Demaut.
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[[END OF NEWSLETTER]]
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Directions to Sarai: We are 10 minutes from Delhi University, and 5 mins. from the Civil Lines Metro Station.