Modern South Asia Workshop Marks Fifth Anniversary

The fifth annual Modern South Asia Workshop was held from March 29-31, 2013.   Sponsored annually by the South Asian Studies Council, it has gained renown for the intensive, interdisciplinary discussions of new research conducted by outstanding junior scholars.  The workshop, held annually in each spring, brings together emerging scholars to present and discuss topics of current and emerging interest in modern South Asia.  Emphasizing cross-disciplinary, inter-regional conversations, workshop participants routinely hail from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, including History, Sociology, Psychology, Social Work, Gender and Women Studies, Folklore, English, Art History and Religious Studies.

The unique character of the workshop is facilitated by the innovative and rigorous selection process used to judge individual submissions.  Since its inception, the workshop routinely receives well over one hundred applications.  This year, sixteen participants were selected from a pool of over 150 applications.  Selections were made through blind review, without knowledge of the affiliation, discipline, or name of the individual applicant.  The selection process therefore generated great diversity among participants, with some fifteen institutions represented from countries that included the US, Australia, Canada, Pakistan, and the UK.  Panel themes were identified based on broad clusters of interests emerging from the paper abstracts.  They included: “Writing Agency”, “Technologies of Development Claims-Making and Governmentality”,  “Negotiating Marginality”, and “Spaces and Places of Belonging”.

To mark the fifth anniversary of the Modern South Asia Workshop, a special panel discussion took place on the evening of Friday, March 29, 2013.  Titled “Directions and Opportunities for South Asian Studies”, the panel presented a conversation between Professor Vasudha Dalmia, Tandon Professor of Hinduism, and Professor of Religious Studies, Professor K. Sivaramakrishnan, Chair of the South Asian Studies Council and Professor of Anthropology and Forestry and Environmental Studies, and PhD candidates from Political Science, Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Anthropology.   Professor Dalmia highlighted a number of exemplary works from the South Asian humanities; Professor Sivaramakrishnan flagged several promising areas, including increasing attention on the ancient and early modern period, for the future development of South Asian Studies; and PhD candidates described how regional specialization had shaped their own projects.  In the discussion following the panel presentations, panelists and audience members discussed the epistemological and methodological challenges and opportunities of bringing together qualititative and quantitative research with a common regional focus.