Document Actions
February 2007
SARAI NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2007
[[CONTENTS]]
[[EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS]]
1. Seminar @ Sarai: Public Spaces and Intellectual Debates in
Contemporary China, Wan Hui
2. Seminar @ Sarai: The Where of Now - Positionality in the Moment of
Globalisation, Irit Rogoff
3. Lecture-Demonstration @ Sarai: Cartoons and Icons: Notes from an
Archive of Blasphemy and Heresy, Shuddhabrata Sengupta
[[FILM]]
4. Film @ Sarai: Rabindranath Tagore, directed by Satyajit Ray,
introduced by Ramin Jehanbegloo
[[PUBLICATIONS]]
5. Call for Applications: Sarai Reader 07: The Frontier
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[[EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS]]
===============
Seminar @ Sarai
===============
Public Spaces and Intellectual Debates in Contemporary China
A Talk by Wan Hui
3 P.M., Friday, 9 February 2007
Seminar Room, CSDS
WANG HUI is one of contemporary China’s foremost intellectuals and
scholars, and has emerged as a critical voice in the tradition of the
great twentieth-century revolutionary social critic Lu Xun, on whom
he has written extensively. Professor of History at Qinghua
[Tsinghua] University in Beijing and the author and editor of many
books, Wang Hui is also editor of Dushu (Reading), China’s premier
journal of ideas and critical thought. This journal has a readership
of something between 100, 000 to
120, 000 and is also read by members of the Chinese Communist Party.
The English-language translation of his book of essays China’s New
Order: Society, Politics, and Economy in Transition (Harvard, 2003
and 2006) brought his work to a wider audience, and established his
reputation outside of China as a significant analyst and critic of
contemporary capitalism in China. In 2004, Wang Hui’s four-volume
Zhongguo xiandai sixiangde xingqi (The
Rise of Modern Chinese Thought) was published in Beijing. It is a
major reinterpretation of the history of Chinese thought from pre-
imperial times through the present, and has had an enormous influence
on contemporary discussions of national identity, politics, and the
nature of state, region, and empire.
Although China’s New Order contains important reflections on the
Tianammen movement of 1989 and its aftermath, it would be inaccurate
to describe Wang Hui as a dissident. The current Chinese leadership,
through a range of social initiatives aimed at China’s growing
inequality, has registered the force and truth of Wang Hui’s – and
the New Left’s – critiques, although the regime’s capacity to address
these problems remains uncertain. Indeed, it is to the character of
contemporary politics, and of
political possibility in the present, that Wang Hui has devoted
recent attention.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
'The Where of Now' - Positionality in the Moment of Globalisation.
A Talk by Irit Rogoff
3:30 P.M, Wednesday, 14 February 2007
Seminar Room, Sarai- CSDS
This talk explores the idea of alternative forms of situatedness in
contemporary culture, especially contemporary art, at a time when it
has also become increasingly difficult to define location.
[Irit Rogoff is Professor of Visual Culture at Goldsmiths
College,London University. She works at the intersections of the
critical,the political and contemporary artistic practices. Her most
recent book is "Terra Infirma - Geography's Visual Culture"(Routledge
2001). She directed "Translating the Image - Cross Cultural
Contemporary Arts" (AHRC Research Project 2001-2006)from which 2
volumes will be published by Koenig Verlag in 2007.recent curatorial
projects include "De-Regulation with thework of Kutlug
Ataman" (Antwerp, Herzylia,Berlin) and "Academy - Learning from the
Museum" (Vanabbe Museum, Eindhoven)].
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cartoons and Icons: Notes from an Archive of Blasphemy and Heresy
A Lecture-Demonstration by Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Sarai-CSDS
4:30 P.M., Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Seminar Room, Sarai-CSDS
Cartoons and Icons : Notes from an Archive of Blasphemy and Heresy is
an exploration of different histories of sanctioned and illicit image
making in Islamicate societies, with a view to arriving at a more
nuanced understanding of issues pertaining to image making, freedom
of expressiona and the xenophobic and discourse around images, in
the wake of the publication of the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad
in European and other newspapers. This presentation, which takes
place exactly a year after the 'Danish Cartoon' question became an
international crisis seeks to complicate prevalent narratives of
blasphemy, heresy and ritualised iconoclasm in Islamicate societies,
as well as the ritualised demonization of Muslims in Europe by
pointing towards recalcitrant histories that defy the imperative of
narrative simplification.
[Shuddhabrata Sengupta works at the Media Lab at Sarai-CSDS. He is a
media practitioner, artist and writer with the Raqs Media Collective.]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[[FILM]]
========================
Film @ Sarai: February – March 2007
========================
Rabindranath Tagore
Satyajit Ray
1961, India. Documentary, 54 min, B/W
Producer: Films Division, Govt. of India
4:30 P.M., Friday 2 February 2007
Seminar Room, Sarai-CSDS
The film will be introduced by Prof. Ramin Jehanbegloo, Rajni Kothari
Professor of Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies, Delhi
The documentary details the life and work of Rabindranath Tagore
(1861-1941). The documentary was made to celebrate Tagore’s birth
centenary in May 1961. Ray was conscious that he was making an
official portrait of India’s celebrated poet and hence the film does
not include any controversial aspects of Tagore’s life. However, it
is far from being a propaganda film. The film comprises dramatized
episodes from the poet’s life and archived images and documents.
[Ramin Jahanbegloo was born in Tehran and studied at the Sorbonne
University, Paris. He is currently the Rajni Kothari Professor of
Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in
Delhi. Prior to this he was a post-doc at Harvard University and then
headed the department for contemporary studies at the Cultural
Research Bureau, Iran. Among his twenty books in English, French and
Persian are Conversations with Isaiah Berlin (Phoenix, 2000), and (as
editor) Iran: Between Tradition and Modernity (Lexington Books, 2004).
His intellectual work has featured, among other elements, a close
engagement with the life and work of Mohandas Gandhi and Rabindranath
Tagore.]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[[PUBLICATIONS]]
Call for Submissions: Sarai Reader 07: The Frontier
Frequently at frontiers we are asked, 'Anything to declare?' The
wisest thing to do when faced with the scrutiny of a border official
is to say that you have 'Nothing to declare', and quickly move on.
Crossing borders usually entails an effort not to say too much, or
at least to get by with saying very little. A degree of reticence
is the mark of the wise and experienced traveller.
Sarai Reader 07: The Frontier, seeks to turn this ethic of reticence
on arrival at a boundary, at any boundary, on its head. This time,
the Reader will consider limits, edges, borders and margins of all
kind to be sites for declarations, occasions for conversation,
settings for the staging of arguments, debates, recounting and
reflection. We invite you to consider the frontier as an open door, a
chute into something new, or the rediscovery of that which has been
obscured, a hidden tunnel that crosses under a mountain, a porous
membrane of liminal possibilities, a zone of contact and contagion.
We want to think of the frontier as the skin of our time and our
world, and we invite you to get under the skin of contemporary
experience in order to generate a series of subcutaneous reflective
possibilities. For us, the frontier is a threshold waiting to be
crossed, a space rife with the possibility of seductive transgression.
For the full text of the call, and submission guidelines, please see:
http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-January/008578.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[[END OF NEWSLETTER]]
The Newsletter of the Sarai Programme,
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054, www.sarai.net
Info: dak@sarai.net.To subscribe: send a blank email to
newsletter-request@sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
Directions to Sarai: We are ten minutes from Delhi University. Nearest bus
stop: IP college or Exchange Stores
[[CONTENTS]]
[[EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS]]
1. Seminar @ Sarai: Public Spaces and Intellectual Debates in
Contemporary China, Wan Hui
2. Seminar @ Sarai: The Where of Now - Positionality in the Moment of
Globalisation, Irit Rogoff
3. Lecture-Demonstration @ Sarai: Cartoons and Icons: Notes from an
Archive of Blasphemy and Heresy, Shuddhabrata Sengupta
[[FILM]]
4. Film @ Sarai: Rabindranath Tagore, directed by Satyajit Ray,
introduced by Ramin Jehanbegloo
[[PUBLICATIONS]]
5. Call for Applications: Sarai Reader 07: The Frontier
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[[EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS]]
===============
Seminar @ Sarai
===============
Public Spaces and Intellectual Debates in Contemporary China
A Talk by Wan Hui
3 P.M., Friday, 9 February 2007
Seminar Room, CSDS
WANG HUI is one of contemporary China’s foremost intellectuals and
scholars, and has emerged as a critical voice in the tradition of the
great twentieth-century revolutionary social critic Lu Xun, on whom
he has written extensively. Professor of History at Qinghua
[Tsinghua] University in Beijing and the author and editor of many
books, Wang Hui is also editor of Dushu (Reading), China’s premier
journal of ideas and critical thought. This journal has a readership
of something between 100, 000 to
120, 000 and is also read by members of the Chinese Communist Party.
The English-language translation of his book of essays China’s New
Order: Society, Politics, and Economy in Transition (Harvard, 2003
and 2006) brought his work to a wider audience, and established his
reputation outside of China as a significant analyst and critic of
contemporary capitalism in China. In 2004, Wang Hui’s four-volume
Zhongguo xiandai sixiangde xingqi (The
Rise of Modern Chinese Thought) was published in Beijing. It is a
major reinterpretation of the history of Chinese thought from pre-
imperial times through the present, and has had an enormous influence
on contemporary discussions of national identity, politics, and the
nature of state, region, and empire.
Although China’s New Order contains important reflections on the
Tianammen movement of 1989 and its aftermath, it would be inaccurate
to describe Wang Hui as a dissident. The current Chinese leadership,
through a range of social initiatives aimed at China’s growing
inequality, has registered the force and truth of Wang Hui’s – and
the New Left’s – critiques, although the regime’s capacity to address
these problems remains uncertain. Indeed, it is to the character of
contemporary politics, and of
political possibility in the present, that Wang Hui has devoted
recent attention.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
'The Where of Now' - Positionality in the Moment of Globalisation.
A Talk by Irit Rogoff
3:30 P.M, Wednesday, 14 February 2007
Seminar Room, Sarai- CSDS
This talk explores the idea of alternative forms of situatedness in
contemporary culture, especially contemporary art, at a time when it
has also become increasingly difficult to define location.
[Irit Rogoff is Professor of Visual Culture at Goldsmiths
College,London University. She works at the intersections of the
critical,the political and contemporary artistic practices. Her most
recent book is "Terra Infirma - Geography's Visual Culture"(Routledge
2001). She directed "Translating the Image - Cross Cultural
Contemporary Arts" (AHRC Research Project 2001-2006)from which 2
volumes will be published by Koenig Verlag in 2007.recent curatorial
projects include "De-Regulation with thework of Kutlug
Ataman" (Antwerp, Herzylia,Berlin) and "Academy - Learning from the
Museum" (Vanabbe Museum, Eindhoven)].
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cartoons and Icons: Notes from an Archive of Blasphemy and Heresy
A Lecture-Demonstration by Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Sarai-CSDS
4:30 P.M., Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Seminar Room, Sarai-CSDS
Cartoons and Icons : Notes from an Archive of Blasphemy and Heresy is
an exploration of different histories of sanctioned and illicit image
making in Islamicate societies, with a view to arriving at a more
nuanced understanding of issues pertaining to image making, freedom
of expressiona and the xenophobic and discourse around images, in
the wake of the publication of the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad
in European and other newspapers. This presentation, which takes
place exactly a year after the 'Danish Cartoon' question became an
international crisis seeks to complicate prevalent narratives of
blasphemy, heresy and ritualised iconoclasm in Islamicate societies,
as well as the ritualised demonization of Muslims in Europe by
pointing towards recalcitrant histories that defy the imperative of
narrative simplification.
[Shuddhabrata Sengupta works at the Media Lab at Sarai-CSDS. He is a
media practitioner, artist and writer with the Raqs Media Collective.]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[[FILM]]
========================
Film @ Sarai: February – March 2007
========================
Rabindranath Tagore
Satyajit Ray
1961, India. Documentary, 54 min, B/W
Producer: Films Division, Govt. of India
4:30 P.M., Friday 2 February 2007
Seminar Room, Sarai-CSDS
The film will be introduced by Prof. Ramin Jehanbegloo, Rajni Kothari
Professor of Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies, Delhi
The documentary details the life and work of Rabindranath Tagore
(1861-1941). The documentary was made to celebrate Tagore’s birth
centenary in May 1961. Ray was conscious that he was making an
official portrait of India’s celebrated poet and hence the film does
not include any controversial aspects of Tagore’s life. However, it
is far from being a propaganda film. The film comprises dramatized
episodes from the poet’s life and archived images and documents.
[Ramin Jahanbegloo was born in Tehran and studied at the Sorbonne
University, Paris. He is currently the Rajni Kothari Professor of
Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in
Delhi. Prior to this he was a post-doc at Harvard University and then
headed the department for contemporary studies at the Cultural
Research Bureau, Iran. Among his twenty books in English, French and
Persian are Conversations with Isaiah Berlin (Phoenix, 2000), and (as
editor) Iran: Between Tradition and Modernity (Lexington Books, 2004).
His intellectual work has featured, among other elements, a close
engagement with the life and work of Mohandas Gandhi and Rabindranath
Tagore.]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[[PUBLICATIONS]]
Call for Submissions: Sarai Reader 07: The Frontier
Frequently at frontiers we are asked, 'Anything to declare?' The
wisest thing to do when faced with the scrutiny of a border official
is to say that you have 'Nothing to declare', and quickly move on.
Crossing borders usually entails an effort not to say too much, or
at least to get by with saying very little. A degree of reticence
is the mark of the wise and experienced traveller.
Sarai Reader 07: The Frontier, seeks to turn this ethic of reticence
on arrival at a boundary, at any boundary, on its head. This time,
the Reader will consider limits, edges, borders and margins of all
kind to be sites for declarations, occasions for conversation,
settings for the staging of arguments, debates, recounting and
reflection. We invite you to consider the frontier as an open door, a
chute into something new, or the rediscovery of that which has been
obscured, a hidden tunnel that crosses under a mountain, a porous
membrane of liminal possibilities, a zone of contact and contagion.
We want to think of the frontier as the skin of our time and our
world, and we invite you to get under the skin of contemporary
experience in order to generate a series of subcutaneous reflective
possibilities. For us, the frontier is a threshold waiting to be
crossed, a space rife with the possibility of seductive transgression.
For the full text of the call, and submission guidelines, please see:
http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-January/008578.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[[END OF NEWSLETTER]]
The Newsletter of the Sarai Programme,
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054, www.sarai.net
Info: dak@sarai.net.To subscribe: send a blank email to
newsletter-request@sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
Directions to Sarai: We are ten minutes from Delhi University. Nearest bus
stop: IP college or Exchange Stores