South Asia related conferences in the Nordic countries

May 2012

Lund University seminar by Ashok Kumar on Tissue Engineering

Dr. Ashok Kumar, Professor of Bioengineering at the Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, Kanpur, holds a guest lecture at Lund University on Wednesday 23 May 2012, 13.00–14.00. He will talk about ”Tissue Engineering: Where Medicine and Engineering Merge”. Venue: Dora Jacobsohn lecture hall, Biomedical Centre (BMC), entrance D 15, Klinikgatan 32, Lund.
Ashok Kumar received his Ph.D in Biotechnology in 1994 jointly from Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi and Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India. He conducted his postdoctoral research at IIT Delhi, Nagoya University, Japan and Lund University, Sweden. He worked as faculty of Biotechnology at BITS Pilani, and at the Department of Biotechnology, Lund University. He also served as a co-coordinator for the center for Bioseparation in the area of nano/microparticle separations in Sweden during the period 2001-2004.
Seminar abstract: Tissue Engineering is an interdisciplinary field that utilizes the principles of engineering and medical sciences towards the development of tissue/organ substitutes that maintain, restore, or improve their function. It is a unique subject where medicine and engineering have a real integration. Based on these merging concepts, tissue engineering has evolved today as an emerging field of medical sciences, where it has helped people achieve better health care possibilities. Some of the examples which has seen real time clinical applications, are skin tissue engineering where it has shown applications for burn injuries and wound healing. Bone tissue engineering has today changed the concept from replacement to regeneration of bone tissue. This field has grown significantly over the last decade because of the emergence of stem cell use in clinical applications. This particular seminar will highlight the developments made in the laboratory at IIT Kanpur, India with National and International co-operations. Starting from the biomaterial development to its assessment with biological molecules and different cell types, how engineering thoughts are inculcated in developing three-dimensional tissue mimicking a real organ. An overview on some of the developing technologies will include bone, cartilage, skin and neural tissue engineering and bioartificial lever support system.

Lund University seminar on Reconciliation in Post-Civil War Sri Lanka

Professor P. Sahadevan, Professor of South Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India, lecture about ”Challenges to Peace and Reconciliation in Post-Civil War Sri Lanka” at Lund University on Wednesday 23 May 2012, 15.15–17.00. The seminar is jointly organised by SASNET and the Pufendorf Institute at Lund University. Venue: Pufendorf Institute, Sölvegatan 2, Lund.
Prof. Sahadevan is also Editor-in-Chief of International Studies – a quarterly journal published by SAGE Publications. In his presentation he will discuss the dawn of a new political life and qualitatively different challenges facing both the state and nation, that connotes the end of the 26-year long ethnic war in Sri Lanka. The country has entered a 'post-war situation' marked by absence of manifest violence, armed resistance movements and open use of military coercion as a state policy. However, post-war Sri Lanka is yet to become a post-conflict society. This underlines the need for a permanent political solution aimed at redressing the legitimate grievances of the Sri Lankan Tamil community. Yet, a political solution is far from the reality. Where is Sri Lanka heading towards? What are the post-war realities? Does the international community have a role to play in the conflict? Prof. Sahadevan tries to identify the emerging trends and challenges to peace and reconciliation in the island. 
See the conference poster.

Professor Dipak Malik lectures at Gothenburg University

Professor Dipak Malik, Director for the Gandhian Institute of Studies in Varanasi, India, holds a lecture at the University of Gothenburg on ”Alternative Modernity” on Thursday 24 May 2012, 15.00–17.00. Venue: room D411, Humanisten, Renströmsgatan 6, Gothenburg.
Prof. Malik is currently on a tour to Finland and Sweden. After his lecture in Gothenburg, Prof. Malik will continue his tour to Lund where he will deliver a lecture on the Maoist movement in India (more information).
Below is an abstract of his lecture that will be delivered at Gothenburg.
Abstract: Modernity is a one-way street flowing from West, industrialism and market-capital as arbiter of political economy. Large number of Indian scholars and statesmen in early period submitted to it. But Gandhi brought a paradigm shift of sort, though it was not exactly generic to Mahatma Gandhi’s praxis, it started much earlier from medieval times, from the alternative offered by the “Bhakti movement” particularly trenchant Voices like that of Kabir.
For more information please contact Sigridur Beck at sigridur.beck@hum.gu.se. All are welcome!

 

Annika Härenstam speaker at Go:India-SASNET Brown Bag seminar in Gothenburg

0n 29 May 2012, 12.00 – 13.00 the second Go:India & SASNET Brown Bag seminar will be held in Gothenburg. Venue: The Glass House (Glashuset), Chalmersgatan 4, Göteborg (the Inner Court Yard, between the School of Photography and the Valand School of Fine Arts).
The seminar will feature Annika Härenstam, Professor in Work Science at the Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg. Prof. Härenstam will speak on ”Gender, leadership and health promotion in working life”. She will present the recent cooperation formed with researchers from India. The network – SIGN – Sweden-India Gender Network is a network which aims to link researchers and organizations in India and Sweden, in order to share knowledge on Gender, Work, OSH (Occupational Health and Safety) and Environment in both countries for long-term collaboration. The network has recently received a grant of three million SEK from SIDA and is led by Annika Härenstam and Birgitta Jordansson from the department of Sociology and Work Science. 
All are welcome! Please send an e-mail to sigridur.beck@hum.gu.se as soon as possible to place your order for a lunch baguette at the seminar. Also let us know if you have any dietary restrictions (vegetarian or non-vegetarian). 
Read more about this seminar.
Read more about the previous Go:India & SASNET Brown Bag Seminar with Professor G K Karanth.

Dipak Malik holds SASNET seminar on the Maoist Movement in India

Professor Dipak Malik, Director for the Gandhian Institute of Studies in Varanasi, India, holds a SASNET lecture on ”Indian Naxalism Today” on Tuesday 29 May 2012, 15.15–17.00. Prof. Malik is currently on a tour to Finland and Sweden (on invitation by the Nordic Centre in India consortium) and comes to visit Lund because of his close connection to SASNET, being a member of SASNET’s South Asian Reference Group. Venue for the seminar: Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, conference room, Scheelevägen 15 D, Lund.

The reenergized Maoist movement in India is often referred to as Naxalism because of its beginning in late 1960s emanating from a small hamlet of the northern part of the state of West Bengal. Naxalbari has in recent years again emerged as a potential force of course in India, though within a different context. Maoism today poses a vital question that needs a perspective from the world of social sciences. 
In his presentation, Prof. Malik focuses on its strong impact even on districs near to Varanasi in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh state. Many people in India, including a section in the government are dismissive about it as being merely a law and order question. Others however show an understanding of the problems, they find deep maladies in the Indian society and the current development path, which leads to an insurrectionary mode of protest. It should be noted that these deep rooted maladies in the world of Indian peasantry were described already in the 1950s by Gandhians like Vinoba Bhave, albeit as an aftermath of the Telengana peasant revolt.

Uppsala Symposium on Democracy and Development marks the closure of DevNet

The Swedish Development Research Network on Nature, Poverty and Power (DevNet), based at Uppsala University, invites  to a one-day symposium entitled ”Democracy and Development: A Disputable Pair” on Thursday 31 May 2012, 10–17. The symposium marks the probable closure of DevNet (at least in its present shape), since its funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) has come to an end. It will therefore be dedicated to a retrospective as well as forward looking discussion on the central concepts of democracy, (sustainable) development, globalisation and power. Venue: Hambergssalen, Geocentrum, Villavägen 16, Uppsala University. Participants should register before May 28th to DevNet@csduppsala.uu.se.
The symposium addresses the meanings and realities of democracy and development and their linkages to globalisation and power. What meanings are assigned to these concepts? How do they connect? Such difficult questions and possible answers will be illuminated and debated by experienced and concerned scholars of various generations and backgrounds. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Neera Chandhoke, University of Delhi, India, who will speak about ”Globalisation and Democracy: An Equivocal Relationship”. Other invited speakers include Dr. Beppe Karlsson, Dept. of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University; Dr. Seema Arora-Jonsson, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala; Professor Lars Rudebeck, DevNet, Uppsala University; and Professor Olle Törnquist, University of Oslo.
In his presentation, Lars Rudebeck (photo) will sum up his thinking on the symposium theme after half a century of research, teaching and efforts to support transdisciplinarity in the field of development studies. He was one of the founders of the interdisciplinary Uppsala-Stockholm arena called the AKUT Group (Working Group for the Study of Development Strategies) based at Uppsala University, 1976-1993, as well as the subsequent Seminar for Development Studies (SDS), which in 2008 was transformed into the nation-wide research network DevNet. The continuous aim of these and related constellations has been to promote interdisciplinary exchange in the field of ‘development studies’, and Lars Rudebeck has been one of the central figures in making this possible. Thus, the present symposium is also a tribute to this life-long effort of his.
More information about the DevNet symposium.
June 2012

Brahma Chellaney lectures on Asian Dam-Building Race

Brahma Chellaney, Professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, India, holds a guest lecture at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in Norway on Monday 4 June 2012, 13.00–14.30. He will speak about ”A Dam-Building Race in Asia: How to Contain the Geopolitical Risks”. Venue: PRIO, Hausmannsgate 7, Oslo.
Prof. Chellaney has held appointments at Harvard University, the Brookings Institution, Johns Hopkins University, and Australian National University. He is the author of Water: Asia's New Battleground (Georgetown University Press, 2011) along with five previous books, including Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India, and Japan (HarperCollins, 2010). His presentation focuses on Asia's phenomenal economic rise, that has drawn a lot of attention in policy circles. But less well publicized has been the sharpening water competition this growth has triggered. Asia is the world's most dam-dotted continent: It has more dams than the rest of the world combined.
More information.

Gothenburg conference on Theorisation of Heritage Studies

The Heritage Seminar at the University of Gothenburg hosts a conference entitled ”The Re/theorisation of Heritage Studies” 5–8 June 2012. It is organised in collaboration with Association of Critical Heritage Studies, a newly formed international network of scholars and researchers working in the broad and interdisciplinary field of heritage and museum studies. Its primary aim is to promote heritage as an area of critical enquiry. To this end, the Association works to promote dialogue and networking between researchers from different fields and disciplinary backgrounds and between researchers, practitioners and activists. The Association’s web pages are currently hosted by the Australian National University.

The Gothenburg conference will be the official launch of the Association. Bosse Lagerqvist at the Dept. of Conservation, University of Gothenburg, is the main contact person for the conference. More information.

Indio-Swedish workshop on Power Transformers in Västerås

The Electromagnetic Engineering Lab (ETK) at the School of Electrical Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm organises a Workshop on ”Modelling, Design, and Monitoring of Power Transformers” at Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) Corporate Research in Västerås on 5th June 2012. It is co-organised by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai, with which ETK has a formal collaboration agreement. The objective of the workshop is to present and discuss current power transformer related topics. More information about the workshop.
The workshop is planned by Professor Rajeev Thottapillal at ETK and Professor S.V. Kulkarni, IIT. During his stay in Sweden, they will also discuss how to develop educational collaboration between KTH and IIT Bombay in power engineering.

London conference on India: A Veneration Nation

A one-day conference entitled ”India: A Veneration Nation?” will be held at University College London on 12th June 2012. It is organised by the university’s Dept. of Anthropology, and with a purpose to critically examine India through the lens of a “Veneration Nation” – a country with thriving and recursive cultures of adulatory practices and aesthetics. By looking at contemporary research on India that invokes ideas of ritual, spectacle, prayer, and affectivity we hope to interrogate and extend the application of analytic categories of ‘religion’, ‘politics’ and ‘embodiment’. The conference will be accompanied by an ethnographic exhibition from private collections, a film screening and a web publication. In the interests of highlighting new and emerging work on this subject, the speakers will include post-fieldwork PhD students and postdoctoral researchers as well as established academics such as the renowned Sumathi Ramaswamy, Professor of History and Director of the Duke Center for South Asian Studies, who will provide the Keynote Address.
Abstracts should be submitted before 1 May 2012. More information. 
August 2012

Second Copenhagen Summer University on Decoding India

For the second year, the University of Copenhagen organises a course entitled ”Decoding India! – How to make Sense of a Paradox” as part of its Copenhagen Summer University academic programme, 13 – 17 August 2011 at the University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg Campus. Deadline for applications is 29 May 2012.
This course aims to open the theme of India's rise as a global power and the paradoxes that underpin the phenomenon. It offers an insight into the fast transforming social-political landscape both conceptually and empirically.
The workshop sessions will focus on the structures and forms of ‘power' and the ways in which cultural signs – social status, ‘connections' and ‘clout' across religion, caste and ethnic divides – of power are recognized and practiced. It is aimed at businesses, media, NGOs and foreign policymakers who interact with 'Official India', and seek to acquire and enhance their understanding of the cultural underpinnings of this interaction. The course director is Associate Professor Ravinder Kaur, Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. Other teachers include Professor Surinder Singh Jodhka, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Associate Professor Peter Birkelund Andersen, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. More information

2012 World Water Week focuses on Water and Food Security

The agenda will feature workshops on the following themes: – 

Scholars and professionals from all the world are currently invited to submit proposals for the workshops, as well as for exhibitions or paper presentations of relevance to the main conference focus topic. Priority will be given to proposals that are facets of the global challenge and present practical solutions, policies, and strategies for keeping earth's water and food resources safe, shared and accessible to all. Deadline for submitting proposals is 15 February 2012. See more information and submission guidelines.

The World Water Week is the leading annual global meeting place for capacity-building, partnership-building and follow-up on the implementation of international processes and programmes in water and development, with large relevance to South Asia. The conference is filled with plenary sessions, seminars, workshops, side events and special activities. The Scientific Programme Committee (SPC) planning for the conference was for many years chaired by Prof. Jan Lundqvist at SIWI (previously at the Dept. of Water and Environmental Studies, Linköping University), but from this year the chairman position is taken over by Dr. Torkil Jönch-Clausen (read his CV). Venue: Stockholm International Fairs and Congress Center (Stockholmsmässan) in Älvsjö, 9 km south of central Stockholm. Full information.
September 2012

Environment in focus at Oslo University’s 4th annual India seminar

The University of Oslo holds its 4th annual contemporary India seminar on Thursday 6 September 2012. The theme for the 2012 seminar is ”The Politics of Environmental Challenges in India”. It seeks to explore how various environmental challenges are politicised in India. The organisers wish to examine how environmental issues have entered the realm of political discussions as a result of intentional actions by individuals or groups, who have sought to mobilise people around environmental agendas. The seminar is organised by the Nordic Forum for South Asia (NoFSA) in collaboration with the Nordic Network for the Study of Environmental Challenges in South Asia (NECSA). The deadline for submitting an abstract is 1 May 2012. More information.

Papers invited for 4th Annual Copenhagen South Asia Workshop

Thomas Blom Hansen and Faisal Devji.

The 4th Annual Copenhagen South Asia Workshop (CSAW) will be held at the University of Copenhagen on Monday 17 September 2012, 09.30–17.30. The theme for the 2012 CSAW workshop will be ”Worlds of South Asia”. Papers are now invited. The aim is to showcase the wide variety of worlds – social, political, cultural, financial, developmental, historical, mythical, regional and/or global assemblages – that make the idea of South Asia. The workshop welcomes ongoing scholarly projects on any South Asian locality – both within the region as well as in transnational sites – and themes pertaining to the region’s history, culture, society and politics.
The workshop will have two speakers Thomas Blom Hansen, Stanford University and Faisal Devji, University of Oxford who will give keynote lectures on their most recent works. The workshop is jointly organised by the Centre of Global South Asian Studies, the Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, and the Asian Dynamics Initiative, University of Copenhagen. The workshop does not offer any travel grants. Deadline for paper proposals is 5 June 2012.
For more information contact Emilijia Zabliute.  
November 2012

Linköping conference on Discourse and Interaction

The second Nordic Interdisciplinary Conference on Discourse and Interaction (NorDIsCo) will be held at Linköping University, Sweden, 21–23 November 2012. It is jointly organised by the It is jointly organised by the Department of Culture and Communication (IKK), and the Child Studies department at Linköping University – Tema Barn.
PhD candidate Alia Amir (photo) from IKK is part of the organising committee. The aim of this conference is to bring together doctoral students and researchers in the Nordic and Baltic region who investigate discourse and interaction from different disciplinary perspectives. The conference will highlight research that explores how text, discourse, talk and social interaction are structured, organised and constituted. Thus, this conference welcomes contributions by scholars and doctoral students in a range of fields of inquiry, including but not limited to discourse studies, conversation analysis, discursive psychology, critical discourse analysis, interaction analysis, rhetoric, narrative analysis, discourse theory, political discourse analysis, social semiotics, multimodal discourse analysis, applied linguistics, gesture studies and communication activism, as well as approaches to discourse and interaction to be found in sociology, political science, environmental science, economics, media studies and cultural studies.
Deadline for abstract submissions was 30 March 2012. 
More information about the 2012 NorDIsCo conference. 

Eighth ECO-TECH conference to be held in Kalmar

EcoTech 2010The Eighth International Conference on the Establishment of Cooperation Between Companies and Institutions in the Nordic Countries, the Baltic Sea Region, and the World, Linnaeus ECO-TECH’10, will be held 26-28 November 2012 in Kalmar. It is a conference on Natural Sciences and Environmental Technologies for Waste and Wastewater Treatment, Remediation, Emissions Related to Climate, Environmental and Economic Effects.
The conference is organised by the Linnaeus University, a fusion betwen the University of Kalmar and Växjö University. The organising committee includes Prof. William Hogland, Division of Environmental Engineering in Kalmar. He has been involved in research focusing on waste treatment in Nepal, and has also been responsible for organising the Kalmar Eco-tech conferences since they were introduced in 1997. Prof. Kurian Joseph from Anna University, Chennai, India, is part of the scientific committee behind the ECO-TECH’10 conference. Deadline for sending abstracts is 15 June 2012. More information.
December 2012

Oslo conference on Imagining Multiple Indias in India and beyond

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.
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