The University at Buffalo Humanities Institute Research Workshop on Translation will host Dr. Jennifer Dubrow (University of Washington-Seattle) for an online public lecture, “Characters to Resist Modernity in the Short Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto.” The event will take place on Zoom 2 – 3:30 pm EDT Monday, May 9, 2022.
To register for this talk and download three brief English translations of short stories by Manto, please visit https://bit.ly/dubrowtranslationzone.
This talk introduces the work of Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955), whom Salman Rushdie called “the undisputed master of the modern Indian short story.” Now known for his radical stories of prostitutes and Partition, Manto penned indelible characters who refused South Asian modernity’s categories of Hindu/Muslim, pimp/prostitute, and man/woman. Through a reading of some of Manto’s most well-known and controversial stories, this talk reveals how Manto used a character-driven style to critique colonial modernity, and then fragmented this style to interrogate sexuality after Partition.
UC Riverside Department of English Associate Professor Padma Rangarajan will present “The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism in Three Parts” on Tuesday, May 3 at 4:00pm as part of the UB Department of English Juxtapositions Lecture Series. This virtual event will take place on Zoom. To join, please visit http://bit.ly/rangarajan
Padma Rangarajan is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, where she specializes in nineteenth-century British literature. She is the author of Imperial Babel: Translation, Exoticism, and the Long Nineteenth Century(Fordham 2014). Her current project, Thug Life: The British Empire and the Birth of Terrorism interrogates discourses of modern terrorism through an examination of the legal and cultural legacy of nineteenth-century British imperialism. She has published articles in English Literary History, Studies in Scottish Literature, The Keats-Shelley Journal, Nineteenth Century Studies, and Nineteenth-Century Literatureand is editing a special issue of Romantic Circleson “Contingent Romanticism.”
2022 RUSTGI UNDERGRADUATE CONFERENCE ON SOUTH ASIA
Saturday, April 30, 2022
In-Person (509 O’Brian Hall) + Zoom (register for link)
Saturday, April 30th at 4 PM EST Dr. Michael Muhammad Knight Keynote Speaker Trouble Among the Righteous: The FBI and American Islam
Dr. Michael Muhammad Knight is the author of 17 books, including not only scholarship but also works of fiction and creative nonfiction. His forthcoming works include Sufi Deleuze, an exploration of Islam through a Deleuzian lens, and a monograph on the Nation of Islam’s Supreme Wisdom Lessons. He is an assistant professor of religion and cultural studies at the University of Central Florida.
Featuring Student Speakers & Panelists
Join student speakers, both domestic and international, as well as panel chairs from the University at Buffalo as they speak about some of the most important issues in South Asia. We will cover a diverse range of topics, discussing political, social, health, and environmental issues.
Panel 1: Governments’ Role in the Spread of Disinformation & How it Affects Marginalized Groups
8:45 am – 10:30am
Panel Chair: Dr. Naila Sahar, University at Buffalo & Forman Christian College (Pakistan)
Prerna Vij, Ashoka University “The Conspiratorial Road to the North East Delhi Pogrom”
Samana Butul, Syeda Dua, Zehra Zaidi, Habib University “Sociopolitical Discourse of Balochistan versus Censored Media”
Manaam, University of Delhi “Islamartization: Role of Art in Combating Religious Polarization”
Syeda Zarah Batool, Habib University “Menstruating while Student: Coming Back To Campus after Lockdown in Pakistan”
Panel 2: The Role of Social Media & Technology in the Spread of Disinformation & Prejudice
10:45am – 12:30pm
Panel Chair: Anupriya Pandey, University at Buffalo
Ananya Pujary, Flame University“The Effect of Climate Change Fake News on Emotions across Generations”
Rukhshan Haroon, Ayesha Naeem, Uswah Fatima, Lahore University“Sociopolitical Discourse of Balochistan versus Censored Media”
Manum Shahid, McGill University “Dalit Muslims in the Face of Hindu Supremacy”
Sudarshan Pujari, Jadavpur University “Are ‘Voluntary’ Religious Associations Laboratories for State-Politics? The Case of ‘Deras’ in the Politics of North-Western India“
Lunch Break 12:30pm – 1:00pm
Panel 3: Power Structures of Regimes & How They AffectEthnicities, Genders, and Religious Groups
1:00pm- 2:15pm
Panel Chair: Dr. Christopher Lee, Canisius College
Samia Noor, University at Buffalo “The Blossoming of the Narcissus in Urdu Poetry”
Eric Cortes-Kopp, Hamilton College “A Threat to Order: Colonial, Nationalist, and Contemporary Approaches To Gender Making”
Nisha Arya, University of Rochester “COVID-19 in India: A Long History of Untouchability”
Panel 4: The Impact of Gendered Relations and Foreign Policy on the South Asian Subcontinent
2:30pm – 3:45pm
Panel Chair: Dr. Shaanta Murshid, University at Buffalo
Imaan Khasru, Princeton University “Invisible Rebellions: The Indian Colonial Woman and Social Restriction”
Anastasiya Rudenko, University at Buffalo “How have U.S. Actions in Afghanistan been Covered by Soviet Russian Media?”
Brooklynn Mainard, University of Kansas “From the Top: Profiling Iran’s Post-Revolution Political Elite
Keynote Speaker 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Introductory Remarks: Dr. Marla Segol, University at Buffalo
Dr. Michael Muhammad Knight
“Trouble Among the Righteous: The FBI and American Islam”
Please join us at 12 pm on Friday, April 29 an Asia at Noon Lecture featuring Dr. Medha Bhattacharyya, Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Bridgewater State University. Dr. Bhattacharyya will give a virtual presentation on “Rethinking Bollywood Women in the Twenty-First Century.” To attend this online event, please visit http://bit.ly/bhattacharyya
Barton Library (Bhavnagar, Gujarat) Photo Credit: Walter Hakala
The University at Buffalo, SUNY, is proud to hold its fourth annual Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia. We invite papers on the theme of “(Mis)information,” which may be interpreted broadly in its social or political sense. The echoes of misinformation ring in all our ears today as we interact with information endlessly. Regardless of whether it is inadvertent or purposeful, the spread of misinformation has affected how we communicate and process “truths” in our world. The 2021 Rustgi conference will feature a keynote lecture from novelist, essayist, and journalist Dr. Michael Muhammad Knight, Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Central Florida. As a scholar, Knight has explored misinformation by contending with prominent descriptions of Islam in media, dissecting concepts of religious othering both within and outside the Muslim community. His works include The Taqwacores, Why I Am a Five Percenter, and Magic in Islam.
We welcome undergraduate participants studying South Asia from all disciplines to submit proposals, preferably but not necessarily working on any topic relating to the theme. Possible topics of discussion include:
Censorship (of journalism and activist voices)
Role of information in religious conflicts
Disinformation
Digital literacy
Institutions that diffuse information
Determinants of beliefs arising from information
Future of misinformation
Ethics of information dissemination
This list of suggestions is by no means exhaustive. We encourage papers that explore sociopolitical issues, communities, or theories stemming from under-represented perspectives. We shall organize panels around presentations addressing similar issues that draw from various disciplinary perspectives, including the social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, management, humanities, fine arts, and others.
The conference will be held on Friday, April 29 and Saturday, April 30, 2022. Student presenters should plan for 15-minute presentations. Each panel will include 30 minutes for discussion. Though the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may require the conference organizers to shift the conference online, we have every hope of holding the event in person.
Deadline
Proposals, including 250-word abstracts and the contact information of a faculty supervisor, must be submitted via the online submissions portal (https://bit.ly/rustgisubmissions2022) by Sunday, February 20, 2022.
When submitting abstracts, applicants must affirm that they will be enrolled as undergraduate students at the time of the conference. Those in graduate programs or not currently enrolled in an undergraduate program will not be permitted to present. The organizers reserve the right to confirm student status with their advisor and home institution.
Funding and Accommodations
We are able to provide a limited number of presenters with a travel subvention of up to US$200. Accepted participants who attend in person will also be provided with shared hotel accommodations. The University at Buffalo cannot provide any additional assistance or guidance to international applicants seeking entry into the United States.
Jamal J. Elias “Troubling Translations and the Elusive Original: Translating More than Text” 12 pm March 19, 2021
Please see the poster below for the Zoom link
Professor Jamal J. Elias is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in Islamic thought, literature, and history in Western, Central, and South Asia, with a focus on Sufism and Visual Culture. His most recent books are On Wings of Diesel: Trucks, Identity and Culture in Pakistan (Oxford 2011), Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, Perception and Practice in Islam (Cambridge, MA, 2012), and Alef is for Allah: Childhood, Emotion and Visual Culture in Islamic Societies (Berkeley, 2018).
Organized by the University at Buffalo Asian Studies Program and Translation Zone Humanities Institute Research Workshop
“Isolation to Responsibilization: Contradictions of Trans Activism in India during COVID-19”
Dr. Aniruddha Dutta
The COVID-19 pandemic and the Indian state’s high-handed response in the form of severe lockdowns without adequate notice or welfare measures had profoundly debilitating effects on socially vulnerable groups, including trans and gender-diverse people. As many have documented, these impacts, including livelihood loss and psychosocial isolation, prompted a flurry of mobilization and fundraising by trans and kothi-hijra (transfeminine spectrum) activists and organizations for not just their own communities but also other marginalized social groups. This burgeoning sphere of COVID-related activism helped mitigate the intensified social and structural isolation of trans and other vulnerable groups during the pandemic, but evidences several contradictions. Since the immediate need for relief took precedence over challenging state policies, trans activism helped fill in for token welfare measures meted out to these communities, which intensified the process of neoliberal responsibilization wherein individuals and the “civil society” take up responsibility to make up for declining state infrastructure and social security. Further, this activism was characterized by profound inequalities in recognition and funding among activists based on class, caste and geographic location, and the state’s utilization of the pandemic period to institute undemocratic bodies for trans welfare, in which elite trans activists were complicit. Based on ethnography and collaborative activism in eastern India, this lecture will explore the conundrums and potentials of Indian trans activism during an unprecedented crisis.
Pandemic food distribution
Dr. Dutta is Associate Professor in the departments of Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies and Asian and Slavic Languages and Literature at the University of Iowa. Their work has appeared in journals such as Transgender Studies Quarterly, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Gender, and History, and South Asian History and Culture.
and
Friday, Feb 26 at 9 PM EST
Paul Livingstone & SANGAM, Guest Performers
Peter Jacobson (l) and Paul Livingstone (r) of SANGAM
Sangam is the chamber music duo of sitarist Paul Livingstone and cellist Peter Jacobson. They have been featured on three Grammy Award-winning records artists with Ozomatli, Quetzal & Rickey Kej.
Syeda M. Bokhari (American University): “Object or Subjects: Women and Violence During the 1947 Partition”
Hannarose Manning (SUNY Geneseo): “Prostitution in Times of Rebellion: Examining the Roles Prostitutes Played in the 1857 Rebellion and the Legacy They Left Behind”
Olivia Frison De Angelis (The College of Wooster): “Criminals and Comic Relief: Hijra Misrepresentation in South Asian Films”
Mridula Sharma (University of Delhi ): “Escaping Isolation(s): (Re)Constructing the Kashmiri Woman in Popular Imagination”
Performance: Paul Livingstone & SANGAM 9:00 pm
Saturday, February 27th
Panel 2: Mediated Spaces 9:00 am – 10:30 am
Amna Ejaz (Lahore University of Management Sciences): “Netflix in Pakistan: Navigating Evolving Screen Modalities among Young Adults”
Nimra Tariq (Lahore University of Management Sciences): “Blood, Guns, and Words: Response to violence in Palestinian and Kashmiri rap music”
Uswah e Fatima (Lahore University of Management Sciences): “A Shared Past & An Ambivalent Future: The Dynamics Between the Pakistani and Indian Film Industries”
Panel 3: Reclamation of Identity 11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Sukanya Maity (Jadavpur University): “Fleeing from the Nations of Pandemics and Epidemics: Walls, Isolation”
Wajeeha Amir (Lahore University of Management Sciences): “Ajab Khan Afridi in Pashto Cinema: Changing Representations and Shifting Identities”
Upasana Rajagopalan (Ashoka University): “Caught in the web of inequalities: The Devadasis’ Isolation”
Nicholas Hom (Elon University): “A Model of Religious Othering for Medieval Tamil Literature”
Lucas J Brenner (SUNY Geneseo): “Wahhabism and the Isolation of Indian Muslims After the 1857 Rebellion”
Keynote Speaker 3:00 pm
Dr. Aniruddha Dutta, “Isolation to Responsibilization: Contradictions of Trans Activism in India during COVID-19”
This online event is free but registration is required. To register, please visit https://bit.ly/rustgiregistration2021 Further details will be provided before the event to those who register.
The Translation Zone Humanities Institute research workshop is happy to invite you to our end-of-semester talk by Dr. Christi A. Merrill, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, South Asian Literature, and Postcolonial Theory, University of Michigan. The title of her talk is “the artistry and afterlives of anti-caste activism.”
The hour-long event will take place at 4:00 PM on Friday, 4th December, 2020. To join the online event, please visit bit.ly/translationzone
As a noted translator and anti-caste academic, Dr. Merrill will speak to us about translation practices in Dalit literature, her own translation work and publishing ventures, as well as larger questions concerning the identities of the author, the translator, and the publisher. You can find out more about her prolific body of translation work and teaching here.
We are very excited to be hosting her as part of our workshop and look forward to having you all join us for this talk! Questions may be directed to Shantam Goyal <shantamg@buffalo.edu>
We are very pleased to announce the first talk in the social justice works-in-progress series, which emerged from one of the Department of English affinity groups and is intended to bring academic and activist work into close conjunction:
Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020 3:30 p.m.
Abhipsa Chakraborty, University at Buffalo Department of English
“Activism of Intersectionality: Dalit Politics at the Cusp of Caste, Class and Gender in Contemporary India”
For a Zoom invitation to join, please email Doug Basford <dbasford@buffalo.edu>.
Please make plans to attend and help us spread the word!
Isolation and its Discontents February 26th and 27th, 2021 University at Buffalo, SUNY
Lodhi Gardens at Night (photo credit: Walter Hakala)
We present the third annual Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia by reflecting upon the rich history of South Asia and its connection to present-day conditions. We invite papers on the theme of “Isolation,” where isolation may be interpreted broadly, whether in its social, political, or environmental sense. To a lot of us today, isolation on a global scale would seem like a novel phenomenon. But both in its metaphorical and literal manifestations, isolation has throughout history been a marker of something tempestuous and has provoked resistance. The conference will feature a keynote lecture from Aniruddha Dutta, Associate Professor in the departments of Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies and Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Iowa.
Undergraduate participants from all disciplines, working on any topic relating to the region, are welcome to submit proposals. Possible topics of discussion include:
Socio-political forms of isolation, including separation and seclusion
Physical isolation
Surveillance
Efforts to isolate certain “master categories” (caste, race, gender, nationality) out of the messy reality of humanity
Myths of environmental isolation
Atavistic claims, be they nationalist, religious, linguistic, or otherwise
Isolation and diaspora
While this list of suggestions is by no means exhaustive, we encourage papers that address less commonly researched sociopolitical issues, communities, or theories. We hope to organize panels around presentations addressing similar issues that draw from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including the social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, management, humanities, fine arts, and others.
The conference will be held online on Friday, February 26th, and Saturday, February 27th, 2021. Students presenters should plan for 15-minute presentations. Each panel will include 30 minutes for discussion.
Deadline
Proposals, including 250-word abstracts and the contact information of a faculty supervisor, must be submitted via the online submissions portal (http://bit.ly/rustgisubmissions2021) by January 1st, 2021.
When submitting abstracts, applicants must affirm that they will be enrolled as undergraduate students at the time of the conference. Those in graduate programs or not currently enrolled in an undergraduate program will not be permitted to present. The organizers reserve the right to confirm student status with their advisor and home institution.
