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Friday, November 20th, 2009
Fri, Nov 20 - Lecture at Salomon 001 @ 5.30 pm
DJ Set at Graduate Student Lounge @ 10 pm
DJ Rekha (Rekha Malhotra), is an accomplished and critically acclaimed DJ and music producer. She has been credited with putting bhangra music on the map in the US, and hosts incredibly popular performances and lectures all over the world. London-born and of Indian origin, DJ Rekha now resides in New York City. She is the creator of the internationally known event called Basement Bhangra, the New York dance party which takes place every first Thursday of the month.
Following the lecture, celebrate your Friday night with DJ Rekha's electrifying mix of South Asian Bhangra and contemporary hiphop! Student DJs will also be performing.
More information: http://brown.edu/Student_Services/TWC/southasian-identity-week.html
http://students.brown.edu/badmaash
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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
When: Wed, Nov 18, 7pm
Where: Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute
Taste of India Reception to follow
This panel seeks to illuminate the multifaceted nature of the South Asian Identity through an interdisciplinary discussion. Professors Ashutosh Varshney, Patrick Heller, Vasuki Nesiah, and Shayoni Mitra will speak about the various factors that have informed and transformed the way South Asia has come to define itself in the last few decades, through the lenses of their respective disciplines.
Professor Ashutosh Varshney is a premier scholar of South Asian politics and ethnic conflict. He has conducted intensive research on the factors of peace/conflict of Hindus and Muslims in Indian cities. Professor Patrick Heller's main area of research is the comparative study of civil societies, specifically focusing on how key institutional levels influence participatory forms of governance. He is currently exploring the role of subordinate classes in the transformation to capitalism in the Indian state of Kerala. Professor Director of International Affairs Vasuki Nesiah has done extensive research on terrorism and security. She has published and lectured in international and comparative law, feminist theory, law and development, postcolonial studies, constitutionalism, and governance in plural societies. Visiting Assistant Professor Mitra wrote her dissertation "Contesting Capital: A History of Postcolonial Political Performance in Delhi" on the intersection of theatre and politics over the last fifty years both on the stage and on the street of the Indian Capital. Mitra was also an actor with the street theatre group Jana Natya Manch for several years, performing in over two hundred shows all over the country.
The panel will be moderated by Professor Meera Viswanathan, associate professor of comparative literature. This event is part of South Asian Identity Week.
More information: http://brown.edu/Student_Services/TWC/southasian-identity-week.html
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Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
In collaboration with the South Asian Women's Creative Collective (SAWCC), based in New York City, South Asian Identity Week presents a performance and panel discussion on queer South Asian performance poetry. The event brings together performance poets from India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan whose work inform and intersect each other in a myriad of ways. The artists tell stories through music, dance, and speech, exploring issues of sexuality, transgenderedness, family, politics, and history through the lens of the queer South Asian experience.
The artists include:
Sarah Husain, editor of Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith and Sexuality
Roopa Singh, an award-winning Professor of Law, hip hop, and politics at City College (CUNY) and Pace University
Dulani, A trans-identified Desi from a low-income immigrant family - his work uses personal narrative as a means for political discourse
YaliniDream, a Sri Lankan Tamil raised in Outside Lands, conjures spirit through her unique blend of poetry, theater, storytelling, dance & song D'Lo, a Tamil Sri Lankan-American, political theatre artist/writer, music producer and director
The panel discussion following the performance will be moderated by Natasha Bissonauth, curator, art critic, and former Program Director of the South Asian Women's Creative Collective. The event seeks to create a unique space for discussion and exploration, one rarely seen within South Asian dialogue.
More information: http://brown.edu/Student_Services/TWC/southasian-identity-week.html
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Sunday, November 15th, 2009
Rajmohan Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, is a leading public intellectual and humanitarian. His talk, "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi," will explore King and Gandhi's historical and philosophical roots, their similarities and differences, and their meaning for us today.
Gandhi is a prolific author, and is currently a research professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2007, his biography of his grandfather, Gandhi: The Man, his People, and the Empire, was chosen for the prestigious National Biennial Barpujari Prize of the Indian History Congress, given once in two years for an outstanding work of history.
Gandhi has worked consistently for India-Pakistan and Hindu-Muslim reconciliation, and was recently elected President for two years of Initiatives of Change International, an NGO working for trust and reconciliation. He is a Jury Member, Nuremberg International Human Rights Award, and Co-chair, Centre for Dialogue & Reconciliation, Gurgaon, India. A former member of the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the Indian Parliament), he led the Indian delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission in 1990.
A Kathryn O. Greenberg Lecture. Free and open to the public. Doors open at 4:30pm.
More information: http://brown.edu/web/india/
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Thursday, November 12th, 2009
Thursday, November 12 at 9PM
Marley's on Thayer Street
South Asian Men's Collective along with SASA, BRIO, and Model UN present Touch at Marley's. Join us for our first "Party for a Cause" as we raise money for South Asian refugees living in Rhode Island. All proceeds will go to the International Institute of Rhode Island, a non-profit "providing high quality educational, legal and social services to immigrants and refugees throughout Rhode Island."
More information available at http://www.iiri.org/
Marley's will also be donating 10% of bar sales to the cause as well!
Come join us for a night of fun, help us party for a cause, and help South Asian refugees HERE in Providence!
Tickets are on sale at the JWW 12-2pm everyday.
Find us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=329369425318
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Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
Do you have a work that you're interested in getting published? Awaaz, the South Asian Journal of Arts, is accepting submissions in the form of poetry, prose, art, photography, etc. that capture the South Asian experience. If you have a piece you've worked on in the past or something you're working on now, be sure to send it our way by emailing awaaz.brown@gmail.com .
The deadline for submission is Sunday, November 15th.
We look forward to reading your submissions.
- The Awaaz Staff
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Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Brown University SASA and Year of India present: Chak De! India
From IMDB: "The story of a hockey player who returns to the game as a coach of a women's hockey team."
For more information, visit the official website:
http://www.yashrajfilms.com/microsites/cdi/cdi.html
Tuesday November 10
Wilson 102
7PM
Hope to see you there!
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Thursday, November 5th, 2009
The "What is Asian" Panel will bring together students from a variety of backgrounds to explore the complexity of what it means to be "Asian" in America and abroad. The intersections of identity we plan to explore are nationality - Asian students from Europe, Africa, and Latin America - gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic status.
If you are interested on being on this year's panel, please contact hudson_leung@brown.edu as soon as possible.
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Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Professor Niraja Jayal Lectures on "In but not of the State: Claims to Social Citizenship in Western India"
Thursday, October 29 at 4:30PM
McKinney Conference Room, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.
Niraja Gopal Jayal is Professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Democracy and Development Program at Princeton University.
She is the author of Representing India: Ethnic Diversity and the Governance of Public Institutions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) and Democracy and the State: Welfare, Secularism and Development in Contemporary India (Oxford University Press, 1999); and editor/co-editor of, among others, Democracy in India (2nd ed. 2007), Local Governance in India: Decentralisation and Beyond (2005) and The Oxford Companion to Politics in India (forthcoming). At Princeton, Jayal is working on a book on the Indian idea of citizenship in the twentieth century.
This lecture is part of the South Asian Politics seminar series being co-hosted by Brown, Harvard, and MIT.
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Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Wednesday, October 28 at 12:00PM
Anthropology Department, Room 212, Giddings House, 128 Hope Street.
Shayoni Mitra, a visiting assistant professor in Brown's Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, will give a presentation on the life and work of street theater activist Safdar Hashmi.
Mitra comes to this topic as a scholar and actor, having performed with Jana Natya Manch, the group Hashmi started, from 2000-2003. In the years since she has been returning to Delhi each year to further her research and continue her collaborations with the theater community there.
Her focus will be on the thorny contradictions thrown up by his highly publicized murder by assault during a performance in Delhi, and the relative anonymity of large parts of his own creative oeuvre. Gifted writer, playwright, lyricist, artist, actor, singer, director, Hashmi was committed to and informed by Left ideology in every instance of his work. Yet his death has moved far beyond the realm of electoral party politics to become a symbol for the very freedom of creative expression in contemporary South Asia.
Visuals and footage from Hashmi's funeral and Lalit Vachani's film "Natak Jari Hai" (The Play Goes On, 2006) will be used.
This event is part of the Brown Faculty India Presentations sponsored by the Year of India.
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Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
SASA and the Year of India present Monsoon Wedding on October 20 in Hunter Auditorium at 7PM. From IMDB: "A stressed father, a bride-to-be with a secret, a smitten event planner, and relatives from around the world create much ado about the preparations for an arranged marriage in India."
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Saturday, October 17th, 2009
SASA's Annual Dinner Dance will be held in Andrew's Dining Hall on October 17th from 7PM - 1AM. Tickets are $10 at the door and $8 in JWW (Thursday and Friday from 11-2). Semi-formal or traditional attire required. Kabob and Curry is catering the event and Badmaash and the South Asian Fusion Dance team will be giving out dance tips for those who need them - you don't want to miss out!
Doors open at 7 pm and dinner starts at 7:30 pm.
During the dinner, we will be having a presentation on The Modern Story Project, an initiative in India empowering the youth of India. Students are provided with video cameras, film editing software, and training so that they can tell provide new perspectives on stories affecting their communities.
If you would still like to submit to Chandni's Photo Exhibit please send submissions to brownunivsasa@gmail.com before Wednesday at 12PM.
For more information, see our Facebook event:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=157014470215
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Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
Professor Lina Fruzzetti Presents: "Out of the Cage: Mixed Marriages in Rural Bengal"
Wednesday October 14 at 12PM
Anthropology Department, Room 212, Giddings House, 128 Hope Street
Anthrophology Professor Lina Fruzzetti's new research builds on her earlier work within rural Bengal, where lineality and blood are central in one's consideration of alliance through marriage - where the meaning of womanhood is accomplished and completed through the act of marriage. Yet the growing number of mixed unions questions the past. The presentation will discuss inter-religious marriages and compare them to inter-caste marriages. The increase of these mixed unions begs the question, what will be the fate of religion and caste within the Bengal society? What will be the new definitional terms of and for identification within the society?
The talk is part of the Brown Faculty India Presentations sponsored by the Year of India.
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Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
Dr. Kenneth Mayer Presents: "AIDS in India: Brown's Involvement in a Dynamic Epidemic"
Tuesday October 13 at 5PM
Biomedical Center, Eddy Auditorium 291, 171 Meeting Street
Kenneth Mayer, Brown professor of medicine and director of the Brown University AIDS Program (BRUNAP), will speak on "AIDS in India: Brown's Involvement in a Dynamic Epidemic". The event is part of the Global Health and Medicine Lecture Series, and is presented by the Brown AIDS Center and Brown Framework in Global Health.
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Saturday, October 3rd, 2009
Come join Brown SASA for our annual day of service in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi's famous quote: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
We will celebrate Gandhi Service Day on Saturday, October 3rd, along with many other cities and college campuses nationwide. The event is supported by the organization South Asian Americans Leading Tomorrow (SAALT; http://www.saalt.org)
Brown SASA will be traveling to the Crossroads Center, a homeless shelter in Providence (http://www.crossroadsri.org/).
Come out and join us while we spend the day playing with underprivileged inner city children and their families at the shelter. Activities will include playing board games, baking cookies/cupcakes, playing sports, etc.
It will be a lot of fun, and your contribution to service will be very meaningful! You do NOT want to miss it!
We will meet at the the Tunnel & Thayer Street (right next to starbucks) at 10 am to take the city bus to the center. Don't forget your Brown ID to ride RIPTA!
Feel free to contact Indu Voruganti at indu_voruganti@brown.edu if you have any questions.
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Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
“Terrorism and Constitutionalism,” with Vasuki Nesiah, lecturer and director of International Affairs, Brown University. Nesiah's current research is on international interventions in conflict/post-conflict contexts. Her talk is part of an ongoing research interest at the intersection of the human rights field and the comparative constitutionalism field. With South Asia as her primary reference, she will focus on debates regarding the right to security against the backdrop of the global "war on terror." Her talk is one of a series of faculty research presentations being given during the 2009-2010 academic year as part of the Year of India.
Location: Anthropology Department seminar room, Giddings House, 128 Hope Street.
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Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Join Brown SASA for a screening of the Academy Award nominated film "Lagaan." And RSVP to our Facebook event! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=142305794388
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Friday, September 25th, 2009
"Social Enterprise to Mobiles: Depoliticizing Development and Information Technologies," with Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change, Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities (In Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council).
Anita Gurumurthy will examine the dominant ICTD discourse. The central argument is that leveraging new ICTs for meeting development challenges requires a sound theoretical basis – drawing from the social theories of ICTs and connecting them to the experience and values of development thought and practice. However, the dominant ICTD discourse has, in its steadfast loyalty to techno-determinism and neo-liberalism, largely adopted an atheoretical stance. It has unabashedly glossed over empirical evidence in not interrogating the failure of the social enterprise model both in ensuring sustainability and in meeting socio-economic goals in a manner that promotes equity. Instead, in an eternal search for new narratives aligned with market interests, ICTD has now chosen to deploy a watered-down empiricism to overvalorise the market-led mobile telephony model without critically examining its full implications for development practice and possibilities. By reposing firm faith in 'win-win' partnerships, ICTD practice has depoliticized development, recasting notions of the 'public' and of 'inclusion' in a corporatised rhetoric of the 'user community' and the 'poor at the bottom-of-the-pyramid', respectively.
The systematic negation in ICTD of fundamental structural questions about technology, development and exclusion has a huge opportunity cost. It has led to the lack of a much needed grounded theory that is in a continuous dialectic with an ICTD practice, which seeks to promote ICTs for participatory development and for deepening democracy. The development question for ICTD is thus not in the realm of the social propensities of new technologies per se, but about their specific meanings for the pursuit of equity and social justice, and hence about the political nature of development itself. A citizenship framework is essential to realise the human development potential of ICTD. This would imply at one level a communitization of ICTD, and, at another, an ICT governance regime that favours an open, inclusive and participatory socio-technical architecture. A new theory and practice of ICTD must emerge in these two starting points.
Presented by Development Studies, South Asian Studies, and the Office of International Affairs.
Location: McKinney Conference Room, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.
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Thursday, September 24th, 2009
Come out and join SASA at Marley's for our first party of the year!
Tickets:
$3 at the PO: sold Wednesday and Thursday 11-2
$5 at the door
Bring Brown ID to party and State ID to drink
Drink specials all night!!
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Sunday, September 20th, 2009
The annual SASA picnic will be held on Lincoln Field on Sunday, September 20, 11 am-1 pm. Lots of food and fun times! This is also your first chance to meet your SASA pal, so see you on Sunday!
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Thursday, September 17th, 2009
Our first General Body Meeting will be on Thursday, September 17, 2009 at 7 pm in MacMillan 117.
Refreshments (Samosas!) will be served!
If you or a representative of your organization would like to make an announcement at the GB Meeting, please e-mail aparna_kumar@brown.edu with your name, organization, and a brief summary of your announcement.
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Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
At last count, over 50 troupes in the Ganjam Province of Orissa, India, perform the Prahlada Nataka - The Play of Prahlada. Their enactments span the night, can last over 20 hours, are usually performed simultaneously by two competing troupes, and frequently end with the actor-priest playing Vishnu's Man-Lion avatar, Narasimha, going into a violent trance. Emigh's talk will describe how this genre moved from Court to Town to Village during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, critiquing British rule, crisscrossing caste lines, and gaining new relevance to Orissan village life.
John Emigh has been teaching and directing at Brown's Theatre, Speech and Dance and English Departments since 1967. He has written on the masked theater and rituals of New Guinea, Bali, and India, as well as on Western theatrical practices. Works include Masked Performance: The Play of Self and Other in Ritual and Theatre (available at: http://books.google.com/books?id=7TNTTi1-fJ8C&dq=Masked+Performance:+The+Play+of+Self+and+Other+in+Ritual+and+Theatre&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=G6GVWO4TfV&sig=S7mUR0fdaX9fzwKNp-m9T62hgF8&hl=en&ei=e-qbSs63HZKy8QbA-_zFAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false) and a film (http://www.der.org/films/hajari-bhand-of-rajasthan.html) on the life of a Rajasthani street performer. Current research involves linking the concerns of those who make and study performances with findings in neuro-science, and studying how performances function during times of crisis.
His talk is one of a series of faculty research presentations being given during the 2009-2010 academic year as part of the Year of India.
Please come and please help us spread the word to your classes, colleagues, and friends.
Location: Anthropology Department, Room 212, Giddings House, 128 Hope Street.
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Friday, September 11th, 2009
SASA and the Pakistani Students Association at Brown (PSAB) are co-sponsoring a book reading and Q&A session with author HM Naqvi on Sept. 11, 2009 at 5PM in the Brown Bookstore. His debut novel, Homeboy, is scheduled for release on Aug. 25 of this year.
Here is a summary of his work:
Naqvi's debut novel introduces Chuck, a 20-something Pakistani living in New York and one of the most engaging protagonists to come along in a while. After moving from Karachi to attend NYU, Chuck readily adapts to the customs of his new home - especially those involving alcohol, cocaine and skirt chasing - but he's not the average drunk college kid: he and his friends, AC and Jimbo, are like a Pakistani-American version of the Three Musketeers - in their own eyes, "boulevardiers, raconteurs, renaissance men." After graduating, Chuck lands a job as an investment banker (his mother's idea), and after a good run, he's fired during a brief economic downturn. Shortly thereafter, his former office building, 7 World Trade Center, is the third building to go down on 9/11. Suddenly, the act of the debonair dandy is a little harder to pull off: with no job, little money, and the rapidly increasing hostility of Americans towards all things Muslim, Chuck struggles to make sense of his newfound status as an outsider. Naqvi's fast-paced plot, foul-mouthed erudition and pitch-perfect dialogue make for a stellar debut.
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