Punjabi University, Patiala hosts Punjab Research Group Meeting
A collection of distinguished scholars from the UK, USA and India were present in Patiala on December 19th, courtesy of the Sociology Department of the Punjabi University. The UK based Punjab Research Group held its bi-annual meeting for the first time in Punjab, India. As part of the Group’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebrations, the group of organised a number of special seminars. The first was held in Lahore in February of this year. The meeting in Patiala was attended by many of the leading international scholars of Punjab studies. Professor Gurinder Singh Mann, from the University of Santa Barbara, California, Virinder Kalra from the University of Manchester, Harjant Gill from the University of Washington and Pritpal Virdee, De Montfort University, UK were present. The main themes of the workshop spanned the historic time period from pre-colonial to present times. The aim of the seminar was to look at the Punjab as an area from an inter-disciplinary perspective. A wide range of issues were explored in depth referring to the social and cultural landscape of Punjab. A lively and informed discussion took place that was well appreciated by all the participants.
The programme had the following presentations:
‘Revisiting the Janam Sakhis’ by Gurinder Singh Mann, University of Santa Barbara, Chaired by HS Gill
‘Jangnama and Precolonial Punjabi Consciousness’ by HS Bhatti and Rabinder Powar, Punjabi University, Patiala, Chaired by Gurinder Singh Mann
‘Understanding Popular Sufi Centres in Punjab’ by Yogesh Snehi, Department of History, DAV College, Chaired by Surinder Jodhka
‘From Putt Jattan De to Munde UK De: The Transformation of Masculinities in Punjabi Cinema’ by Harjant Gill, University of Washington, Chaired by Dr Malkiat Kaur
‘Silent Narratives: Women and Partition in West Punjab’ by Pippa Virdee, De Montfort University, Chaired by Dr Birinderpal Singh
‘Mela of Daud Bandegi, Shergarh, West Punjab’ by Virinder Kalra, University of Manchester, Chaired by Dr Harvinder Bhatti
CFP: Special Issue on Religion and the Internet: The Online-Offline Connection
Heidi Campbell & Mia Løvheim have put out a call for papers for a special issue of Information, Communication & Society on Religion and the Internet: The Online-Offline Connection, which is also linked in with the 2010 Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture in Toronto.
In particular this special issues aims to explore the relationship between online and offline forms of religious practice and community. Key questions include:
- What is truly unique about the performance of religion online?
- How is the practice and conception of religion online connected to offline practices, communities and institutions?
- In what ways does religion online reflect trends seen offline in religious culture and practice?
- How do these transformations connect with issues of globalization and glocalization?
You can read the full CFP over at When Religion Meets New Media: http://religionmeetsnewmedia.blogspot.com/2009/11/call-for-papers-for-special-issue-of.html
Sikhs in Europe: Migration, Identity and Transnational Practices
16-18 June 2010
Venue: Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, Allhelgona Kyrkogata 8, Lund, Sweden.
The Centre for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University is organizing a conference on the Sikhs in Europe. The aim is to gather leading scholars in the multi-disciplinary field of Sikh studies and discuss current research projects focusing on patterns of migration, identity formations, self-representations, transmission of traditions and transnational practices among the Sikhs in different parts of Europe. While two conference days are dedicated to presentation and peer-review of papers by the members of the academic network Sikhs-in-Europe, the third conference day is a workshop for Ph.D. students from different European universities.
For more information, please contact the conference convener at: Kristina.Myrvold@teol.lu.se or visit: http://www.sikhs-in-europe.org/
CFP: South Asia and the West: Entwined, Entangled and Engaged
Los Angeles, CA, April 10-11, 2010
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the two shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.
The popular mind tends to focus on the differences between South Asia and the West, yet throughout history there has been constant interchange, with each side learning from and impacting the other. In 2010 SASA wishes to examine the intertwined nature of East and West, beginning with Alexander the Great’s conquests in Northwest India and continuing through the first use of a decimal zero in the Lokavibhâga, Columbus’ search for a sea route to the Indies, Thoreau’s impact on Gandhi/Gandhi’s on M.L. King, and concluding with today’s bidirectional globalization and the explosive South Asian diaspora.
We particularly invite papers which explore cultural and religious interchanges, entertainment cross-fertilization, economic globalization, and the diaspora experience. Regardless of the theme, however, we welcome papers from all academic disciplines and all periods of time that address the rich tapestry that is South Asia’s past, present and future.
Further details: http://www.sasia2.org/index.html
Language, the Nation, and Symbolic Capital: The Case of Punjab by Alyssa Ayres
Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 67, No. 3 (August 2008): 917–946.
ABSTRACT
A movement to “revive the spirit of Punjab and Punjabi” in South Asia has enabled a surprising thaw between the two Punjabs of Pakistan and India. That this revival movement has been catalyzed from within Pakistan rather than India raises intriguing questions about language, nationalism, and the cultural basis of the nation-state. Although the Punjabiyat movement bears the surface features of a classical nationalist formation—insistence upon recovering an unfairly oppressed history and literature, one unique on earth and uniquely imbued with the spirit of the local people and the local land—its structural features differ markedly. Pakistan’s Punjab has long functioned as an ethnic hegemon, the center against which other regions struggle in a search for power. Yet the Punjabiyat movement presents Punjab as an oppressed victim of Pakistan’s troubled search for national identity. This essay argues that a theory of symbolic capital best explains this otherwise peculiar inversion of perceived and actual power, and underscores culture’s critical role in the nation’s political imagination.
Read further: http://alyssaayres.com/2008/08/language-nation-symbolic-capital-punjab/
15 PhD Scholarships at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen
The Graduate School of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen is inviting applications for 15 PhD scholarships all starting 1 September 2010 for a period of up to three years. Applications must relate to one of the nine research topics mentioned below.
- Pedagogical and/or Technical Audiology (Subject area 1: Scandinavian Studies, Linguistics)
- Media, Citizenship and Rhetoric (Subject area 2: Education, Philosophy, Rhetoric, Film and Media Studies)
- Power, Knowledge and Politics in Europe and the European Cultural Area (Subject area 3: History, Archaeology, Ethnology, Greek and Latin)
- Cultural Memory and the Construction of Individual Identities in the Modern World (Subject area 4: Middle Eastern Studies, Asian Studies, Arctic Studies, Study of Religions, Native American Languages and Cultures, Eastern European Studies, Minority Studies, Comparative Cultural Studies)
- Transnational and Migration Studies (Subject area 5: English, German and Romance Studies)
- Cultural Memory: Aesthetics and Functions (Subject area 6: Art History, Theatre Studies, Dance Studies, Comparative Literature, Musicology)
- Primary Sources for the Study of the Scandinavian Languages (Subject area 7: Old Norse-Icelandic, Dialect Studies, Name Studies, Runology)
- Language Technology (Subject area 8: Language Technology)
- The Human Factor in Climate Change (Subject area defined by topic)
Closing date for applications: 4 February 2010 at 12 noon (Central European time).
Further information: http://www.humanities.ku.dk/research/PhD/Announcements/
Conference: The Hermeneutics of Sikh Music (Raga) and Word (Shabad)
21-23 May, 2010, Hofstra University
Is music a language? Is there meaning in music? Perhaps universal meaning – given the popular platitude that music is the only universal language. Or is the meaning in music mediated by culture to such an extent that one is hard put to speak of universals? If the latter then does that imply a cultural limit to the supposed universal nature of the Gurū Granth Sāhib arguably the musical text par excellence? If the Word needs to be translated across linguistic contexts then does Sikh music also require translation into culture-specific and musical idioms to be efficacious? How to interpret and translate musical meaning? Is it even possible?
The purpose of this conference is to bring these two crucial dimensions of Sikh thought and practice, philosophy and aesthetics, together to initiate an academic dialogue between the Word (language, meaning, interpretation) and its performance in Music and Song (rāg/melody, tāl/metric cycle, laya/tempo, bhāv/expression, instruments etc). The conference aims to grapple with a hermeneutics that can cater for both musical evocation (kīrtan) and philosophical contemplation (kathā) as one phenomenon.
Further information: http://www.hofstra.edu/Academics/Colleges/HCLAS/REL/SIKH/sikh_hermeneutics_may2010.html
Expanding horizons by Shinder Thandi
The Tribune, 24 November, 2009
THE Sikh Studies programme at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), USA, began in Fall 1999 with three clear objectives: to initiate teaching of Sikh studies at UCSB; promote research and publications on Sikh studies; and work toward establishing UCSB as the leading center of Sikh and Punjab studies in North America. Five years later, in 2004, the Center for Sikh and Punjab Studies was established to further consolidate the work already undertaken and also to add further objectives, which included promotion of scholarly exchange, community outreach, teaching and promotion of Punjabi language and hosting the Journal of Punjab Studies. Measured in terms of actual achievements, the programme has far exceeded its expectations and has now emerged as the premier center for the study of Sikh tradition.
Read full article: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20091124/edu.htm#1
Punjabi Poet Amarjit Chandan Receives the Anad Kav Sanman 2009
Chandan accepting award from Krishan Khanna (middle). Bhai Baldeep Singh (right).
India Islamic Cultural Centre Auditorium was a venue for an unusual celebration of the spirit of poetry, music and painting – a fusion of the folk, classical, sufi and gurbani traditions of undivided Punjab – to bring together poets, artists and musicians for a rendering of the poetry of Amarjit Chandan – the recipient of the Anad Kav Sanman, 2009 for his seminal contribution to Punjabi Poetry, and for bringing Punjabi Poetry on the International Scene.
The function began with a musical tribute to Baljit Kaur Tulsi by Rupinder Pal Kaur, who sang one of Tulsi’s poems in Raga Peelu.
Professor Namvar Singh, Hindi literary critic and Chancellor, Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University presided over the Award Ceremony and Krishan Khanna, the Painter, was the Chief Guest of the Second Anad Kav Tarang Festival, organized on the occasion of the conferring of the Award, instituted in the memory of a Punjabi poet, Baljit Kaur Tulsi. The award, offered to eminent poets, includes a cash prize of Rs. 2.25 lacs, a citation, a silver plate and a turban. Anad Kav Sanman is unique in South Asia in the sense that it exclusively celebrates poetic excellence to honor the memory of a woman poet.
Read full article: amarjit chandan press release
Sikh fighter pilots over Europe and Merlins in Afghanistan
The Times, 14 November, 2009
The British premiere of a documentary about British-trained Sikh fighter pilots of the First and Second World Wars is to be screened at the RAF Museum at Hendon, northwest London, on November 22. A seminar about the deployment of the Merlin helicopter in Afghanistan will be held at the same venue on March 10.
Diverse as they are, these two events illustrate what a small world of unexpected inter-relationships exists within the RAF. Both the first Sikh pilot, Flight Lieutenant Hardit Singh Malik, and the speaker at the seminar, Merlin pilot Squadron Leader Simon Reade from RAF Benson in Oxfordshire, are products of No 28 Squadron RAF. Reade is the squadron’s second-in-command.
Read full article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/court_and_social/article6916305.ece
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