An International conference on ”Faith in Civil Society. Religious Actors as Drivers of Change” will be held at Uppsala University on 24–25 April 2012. It is organized by Uppsala Centre for Sustainable Development in cooperation with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.
The conference will discuss how to understand diverse faith-inspired actors, who not always fit neatly within liberal notions of civil society. When are they promoters of social change, democratisation and development, and how do their adherents envision such changes? Researchers, actors in international development cooperation, activists, and others with interest in the issues to participate and make presentations are invited to attend the conference.
The conference is being planned by Mia Melin and Heidi Moksnes, coordinators of the project ”Outlook on Civil Society” at CSD. Full information to be given on the CSD web page

• Gopal Karanth lectures in Oslo on South Indian Rural Water Supply

Professor Gopal K. Karanth from the Centre for Study of Social Change and Development at the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) in Bangalore, India, but during the academic year 2011/12 ICCR India Chair Professor at Lund University, Sweden, held a guest lecture at University of Oslo on Friday 27 April 2012, 10.15–12.00. He spoke about ”Hurdles to Equity in Rural Water Supply: Karnataka State, India”. Venue: Seminar room 144, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, Blindern, Oslo.
The lecture was part of the Georg Morgenstierne Series of lectures on South Asia, funded by the departments of Archaeology, Conservation and History (IAKH) and Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS) at the University of Oslo.

• Oslo seminars on Religious Art of South India

The Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS) at University of Oslo, organises two guest lectures on ”Religious Art of South India” with Professor Marzenna Czerniak-Drozdzowicz from the Dept. of Indology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, on 30 April and 2 May 2012.
On Monday 30 April, 16.15–18.00, she will lecture about ”Temples and Temple Cult”. More information.
On Wednesday 2 May, 16.15–18.00, she will lecture about ”Consecration and Installation Ceremonies”. More information.
Venue for both seminars: Seminar room 1, P.A.Munchs hus, Blindern, Oslo.

• Stockholm seminar on Everyday Life among South Asian Intellectuals

Dr. Kerstin B Andersson, PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Gothenburg, held a public lecture on ”New forms of media and a changing world; virtuality, reality, and everyday life among intellectuals in South Asia” at Stockholm University on Wednesday 2 May 2012, 15–17. The seminar was organised by the Dept. of Oriental Languages, and was part of its weekly seminar series on ”Aktuellt Asien” during the spring semester 2012.  Venue: Kräftriket 4A, Sal B, Stockholm.
Please note change of date (originally set for 25 April)

• Cederlöf lectures at Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies

Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies is a brand new research environment at Linnaeus University (located in Växjö and Kalmar). The Centre, established in 2012, focuses on colonial and postcolonial interactions between cultures. The research team consists of eleven scientists from multiple disciplines, and projects are carried out both individually and in groups. The researchers include Professor Margareta Pettersson from the School of Humanities in Växjö. More information about the Centre for Concurrences.
The Centre will organise seminars on a regular basis. On Thursday 3 May 2012, at 14.15, Professor Gunnel Cederlöf from the Department of History, Uppsala University, will come and lecture on ”Climate, Polities and the Making of a Citizen: Founding an Empire on India’s Northeastern Frontiers”. Venue: Lammhult Room, F-Building, Växjö. More information.

The Forum for South Asia Studies at Uppsala University invites to a public lecture with Professor Gunnel Cederlöf, Department of History, Uppsala University, on Monday 7 May 2012, 13.15–15.00. The seminar is entitled ”Climate, Polities and the Making of a Citizen: Founding an Empire on India’s Northeastern Frontiers”. Venue: Main University Building (universitetshuset), Room 8, Biskopsgatan 3, Uppsala.
In public debates for most of the last century, North East India remained a region at the far end of the state, cut off from the ‘mainland’ and the larger markets, and haunted by violence. It has carried legacies of colonial governance into the present of government being unable to subdue and domesticate people and landscape within the larger polity. This secluded position of the region has a comparatively short history. The interest in mineral wealth of the hills, and of connecting Bengal (and India) with the large markets in China was a major driving force behind the British East India Company’s advance eastwards. Commercial prosperity and private returns pushed forward Company initiatives to establish de facto control of the territories argued to be included in the diwani grant of 1765 providing extensive revenue rights over large territories. The British Company sought to reopen, not close the commercial overland routes to the east. This talk focuses on conflicts involved in establishing colonial governance and will elaborate on three themes and their interrelatedness.

The Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo organises a three day conference on ”The Indian Phantasm: Imagining Multiple Indias in India and Beyond” 6–8 December 2012. Venue: Museum of Cultural History, Frederiksgate 2, Oslo.
The idea is to identify and analyze the multiple narratives, representations and imaginaries of contemporary India, both within and beyond its borders. Papers featuring analysis of Indian material culture, consumer goods, Bollywood and other Indian film production, calendar art, fashion, posters, photography, soap operas, advertising, music videos, TV-shows, theater, performance, religious expressions and spiritual tourism are particularly welcome. The idea is to get a grasp of what the phantasm of contemporary India might consist of and how it could be creatively approached in ethnographic research and what it can tell us about the current Indian postcolonial condition. The conference will feature several ethnographic movies and therefore theoretical papers on ethnographic filmmaking and the use of photography and image in ethnography are also of interest. Featured ethnographic movies include FlyoverDelhi by Paolo Favero & Angelo Fontana (2004), India Deluxe: Dreams of Luxury, Realities of Life by Tereza Kuldova & Arash Taheri (2012), and Beggars of Lahore by Sheba Saeed (2010).
Abstracts should be submitted before 1 August 2012. More information.

Yale University Modern South Asia Workshop 201 will be held 7–8 April 2012 at New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Abstracts are now invited for this two-day workshop that brings together the ongoing work of advanced graduate students and recent PhDs working on topics of current interest in modern South Asian Studies. Submissions of paper proposals from all disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences are invited, particularly those that will foster cross-disciplinary dialogue and exchange of ideas from across the diverse regions of South Asia. Past papers have tackled issues ranging from film and ethnomusicology to state formation and elections and have presented new theoretical and methodological alternatives in the study of South Asia. The workshop is sponsored by the South Asian Studies Council at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. More information.

The British Association for South Asian Studies, BASAS, invites for its Annual Conference 2011 to be held at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), in London between 12 and 14 April 2012. The theme for the conference will be the future of South Asia.
The conference aims to lay bare the diverse and complex ways in which future trends and developments in the South Asia region and the way in which we understand and encourage interdisciplinary conversations about the region.
The conference organizers are Dr. Lawrence Saez, and the Centre of South Asian Studies at SOAS.
More information about the BASAS 2012 conference.

The Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Hawai’i, USA, holds its 29th Annual Spring Symposium entitled “Settling and Unsettling: The City in South Asia” on 18–20 April 2012, in Honolulu. It is co-sponsored by the School of Architecture, and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Hawai’i.
Stepping outside of technocratic approaches, and the view of the city as a site of intractable problems, this symposium aims to highlight the multifaceted energies and imaginaries that animate contemporary interpretation of cities. Keynote speakers include Ravi Sundaram, Sarai Program, Center for the Study of Developing Societies, India.
More information.

The India China Institute at The New School, New York organises an Emerging Scholars Symposium on China/India Studies on 26–27 April 2012. Abstract submissions are now invited for this symposium entitled “India China Conversations: Inaugural Interdisciplinary Symposium for Emerging Scholars.” It is an unique initiative designed to provide a platform for both advanced level graduate students in professional fields as well as current PhD scholars and those who received their PhD within the last five years, to present their ongoing research and to discuss recent advances and new trends in research on India and China.
The first day will be a public event where the selected participants will present their work and ICI fellows and other scholars committed to the study of India-China relations will be invited to serve as moderators and discussants. The second day will be a closed-door session aimed at providing a space for the establishment and strengthening of scholarly networks in which participants may discuss methodological and other relevant issues. More information.
This symposium is part of a series where a similar event will be held with emerging Indian scholars who are conducting research on China and emerging Chinese scholars who are conducting research on India.  A total of 10 scholars will be selected, two from India, two from China and six from the US, to present their papers at The New School, New York, on April 26, 2012. The six selected scholars from the US will be comprised of a mix of advanced level graduate students and young PhD scholars, both current as well as those who received their PhDs within the last five years.

The After Subaltern Studies: Early Career South Asian Studies Workshop will be held at Princeton University, USA, 27–28 April 2012. Since its intervention in the early 1980’s, “Subaltern Studies” has transformed the historiography of South Asia. This conference aims to examine the trajectories South Asian scholarship has taken three decades from its inception and five years since the last publication from the collective. The aim is not to debate Subaltern Studies but to engage with questions raised by the field in the aftermath of its intervention.
The workshop would particularly encourage work that steps beyond the colonial period and explores both early modern and postcolonial South Asia. The workshop aims to bring the work of early career scholars (graduate students and junior faculty) in conversation with senior scholars.
Professor Partha Chatterjee (Columbia University) will deliver the keynote address at the conference.
More information.

An International Conference on “Politics of Religion in Asia” will take place 12 – 13 May 2012 at the University of Iowa, USA and a call for papers is now open. The conference will focus on the development of religion and its role in politics in Asian countries, among which China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and India. The conference organisers from the International Programs, University of Iowa will support the participants whose papers are accepted with airfare and lodging, as well as with publishing the papers in an edited volume. More information (as a pdf-file).

The Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) organises its 19th Biannual conference 11 – 13 July 2012 on the Parramatta Campus of the University of Western Sydney, Australia. The conference is hosted by the University’s Institute for Culture and Society, the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, and the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies. The main theme is ”Knowing Asia: Asian Studies in an Asian Century” through which there will be explored the shifts related to Asia’s becoming of an increasingly prominent, complex and self-confident region in the world which requires a rethinking of the concept of ”knowing Asia”. The conference will work also to encourage reflection on the implications of these shifts on the field of Asian studies in general by working with different sub-topics among which new Asian hegemonies, urban cultures and social transformation, cultural diplomacy and cultural policy. Keynote speakers include Professor Prasenjit Duara, Director of Research at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Registration deadline is 31 March 2012. More information. 

The ninth International workshop on Tamil Epigraphy will be held 6–17 August 2012. Please note that the workshop will be held in Pondicherry and in Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu, India. It is coordinated by Dr. Appasamy Murugaiyan from the research group Iranian and Indian Worlds at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), University of Paris 3 (Sorbonne Nouvelle); and Dr. K. Rajan, Pondicherry University, India. No registration fees are required, but each participant has to bear the cost of practical works and travelling to different sites. The workshop will be held from Monday till Friday, morning 9.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. (lunch break) afternoon 2.00 to 4.00 p.m. The participants have to arrange themselves their travel. This special program, part of the regular seminar, is organised as requested by many researchers on humanities working on Tamil in different countries. More information.

The Second Conference of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies (ANHS) will be held at the Fetzer Center on the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, in conjunction with the 61th Annual Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, 21–23 September 2012. The format of the conference will include traditional panel with presentations by four panelists and a discussant; workshops around papers presented; roundtable discussions on a topic of broad interest; and panels on a recent significant publication or film. Submissions open on 16 March 2012 and close 18 May 2012. More information.

The 5th International Conference of the South and Southeast Asian Association for the Study of Culture and Religion (SSEASR) will be held at Manila, the Philippines, 16–19 May 2013. the Conference is being organized by the National Museum of the Philippines in Manila from May 16 to 19 2013, and will be held in collaboration with some local Universities(details being worked out). The theme for the conference will be ”Healing, Belief Systems, Cultures and Religions of South and Southeast Asia”. The 5th SSEASR conference is co-sponsored as a Regional Conference by the SSEASR parent body – the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), an affiliate organisation of the UNESCO.
Deadline for Show of Interest is 24 November 2012, and deadline for submitting abstracts is 24 February 2013. Full information.