35 Doctoral studentships at Lund University
Lund University now invites applications for 35 doctoral studentships ( including 4 in Religious studies) to commence on 1st September 2012.
For more information, visit: http://www.ht.lu.se/upload/LUPDF/HT/omradeht/ledigaanstlln/Utlysdoktanstfebr2012_eng.pdf
17 PhD positions at Umeå University, Sweden
The Faculty of Arts at Umeå University is looking to explore new topics in the arts and humanities and we are building strong research areas for the future. We are now employing 17 PhD students as part of the strategic work to make research in the arts and humanities in Umeå even stronger.
PhD students are embedded in the Graduate School of Humanities<http://www.humfak.umu.se/utbildning/utbildning-pa-forskarniva/humanistisk-forskarskola/>. All PhD students have a fixed annual sum to cover expenses such as conference traveling, data collection, and to attend international summer and winter schools, etc. In addition to thorough research training, the graduate school offers a variety of courses aimed at improving professional, general, and personal skills. The programmes start on September 3, 2012. PhD students with a profile in educational science (Educational Work, Language Teaching and Learning, and Educational History and History Didactics) will also have access to courses and seminars in The research school in educational science<http://www.use.umu.se/forskning/forskarskola/>.
See: http://www8.umu.se/umu/aktuellt/arkiv/lediga_tjanster/313-23-35-12b.html#eng
Call for Papers: Special issue on Imagining Punjab and the Punjabi Diaspora
A Special Issue of South Asian Diaspora will be published in 2014 on: ‘Imagining Punjab and the Punjabi Diaspora’
Guest Editor: Anjali Gera Roy
South Asian Diaspora invites contributions to this Special Issue that will foreground the region within diaspora studies through focusing on Punjab, a land-locked region divided between India and Pakistan in 1947. The special issue will explore the importance of the home village/town/city, language and culture rather than the nation for many Punjabis living in the diasporas as well as for those displaced by the 1947 Partition, and will contribute to broader debates on transnationalism, postnationalism, micronationalism, and
new identity narratives emerging in the twenty first century. Papers will focus on Punjab as an ethno-spatial complex, a social form and a type of consciousness, and will address the ways in which multiple imaginings of Punjab as a site of diasporic nostalgia and longing produce inclusive as well as exclusionary narratives of self, home and community. Drawing on historical and post-colonial understandings of the region across a wide range of locations and disciplines, the papers will explore the importance of Punjab, Punjabi language and Punjabi culture in diasporic imagination, memory, identity, and everyday practices. By investigating the meanings of Punjab and Punjabiyat in the past and the present, the special issue will contribute to understandings of postnational formations within a South Asian context.
All invited and contributed manuscripts to this special issue will be peer reviewed. For guidelines of how to prepare the manuscript, please visit the journal website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rsad
Manuscripts for the Special Issue should be submitted no later than 31 March 2013. Submission of manuscripts through electronic mail (preferably as MS Word attachment) to Anjali Gera Roy (anjali@hss.iitkgp.ernet.in) is especially encouraged. Alternatively,
please submit three printed copies and an electronic version (MS Word format on a floppydisk or a CD) of the manuscript to:
Professor Anjali Gera Roy
Department of Humanities & Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology
Kharagpur – 721 302
INDIA
Phone : +91 3222 283616 (O); +91 3222 283617 (R)
Fax : +91 3222 282270 (O)
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/cfp/rsadcfp.pdf
Poetry as Resistance: Islam and Ethnicity in Postcolonial Pakistan by Nukhbah Langah
Poetry as Resistance: Islam and Ethnicity in Postcolonial Pakistan by Nukhbah Langah (Routledge, 2011)
Focusing on the culturally and historically rich Siraiki-speaking region, often tagged as ‘South Punjab’, this book discusses the ways in which Siraiki creative writers have transformed into political activists, resisting the self-imposed domination of the Punjabi–Mohajir ruling elite. Influenced by Sufi poets, their poetry takes the shape of both protest and dialogue. This book reflects upon the politics of identity and the political complications which are a result of colonisation and later, neo-colonisation of Pakistan. It challenges the philosophy of Pakistan — a state created for Muslims — which is now taking the shape of religious fanaticism, while disregarding ethnic and linguistic issues such as that of Siraiki.
Read review by Ayesha Siddiqa in The Friday Times: http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/article.php?issue=20120210&page=19
Sikhs in Europe. Migration, Identities and Representations, Edited by Knut A. Jacobsen & Kristina Myrvold
Sikhs in Europe. Migration, Identities and Representations, Edited by Knut A. Jacobsen, University of Bergen, Norway; Kristina Myrvold, Lund University, Sweden (Ashgate, 2011)
Sikhs in Europe are neglected in the study of religions and migrant groups: previous studies have focused on the history, culture and religious practices of Sikhs in North America and the UK, but few have focused on Sikhs in continental Europe. This book fills this gap, presenting new data and analyses of Sikhs in eleven European countries; examining the broader European presence of Sikhs in new and old host countries. Focusing on patterns of migration, transmission of traditions, identity construction and cultural representations from the perspective of local Sikh communities, this book explores important patterns of settlement, institution building and cultural transmission among European Sikhs.
Contents: Introduction: Sikhs in Europe, Knut A. Jacobsen and Kristina Myrvold; Part I Sikhs in Northern and Eastern Europe: Institutionalization of Sikhism in Norway: community growth and generational transfer, Knut A. Jacobsen; The Sikh community in Denmark: balancing between cooperation and conflict, Helene Ilkjaer; The Swedish Sikhs: community building, representation and generational change, Kristina Myrvold; Sikhs in Finland: migration histories and work in the restaurant sector, Laura Hirvi; The Sikhs in Poland: a short history of migration and settlement, Zbigniew Igielski. Part II Sikhs in Southern Europe: Mirror games: a fresco of Sikh settlements among Italian local societies, Barbara Bertolani, Federica Ferraris and Fabio Perocco; ‘Did you get papers?’: Sikh migrants in France, Christine Moliner; Caste, religion, and community assertion: a case study of the Ravidasias in Spain, Kathryn Lum; Sikh immigrants in Greece: on the road to integration, Niki Papageorgiou. Part III Sikhs in the United Kingdom and Ireland: Sikh diversity in the UK: contexts and evolution, Eleanor Nesbitt; Sikh-ing beliefs: British Sikh camps in the UK, Jasjit Singh; The Valmiki, Ravidasi and Namdhari communities in Britain: self-representations and transmission of traditions, Opinderjit Kaur Takhar; The Sikh diaspora in Ireland: a short history, Glenn Jordan and Satwinder Singh; Glossary; Index.
Link to publisher – Ashgate: http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&pageSubject=549&calcTitle=1&sort=pubdate&forthcoming=1&title_id=10934&edition_id=14157
The Punjab: Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed by Ishtiaq Ahmed
Extract from The Punjab Bloodied Partitioned and Cleansed by Ishtiaq Ahmed, (Rupa & Co, 2011)
INTRODUCTION
(Pages xxxviii-xxxix)
A Sikh Plan to eradicate all Muslims from East Punjab They alleged that the Sikhs had a definite plan to eliminate Muslims from East Punjab and that the Hindu group, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), was behind many heinous bomb blasts and other assaults on Muslims. Notes on The Sikh Plan says:
‘The ultimate goal which the Sikhs had set before them seems to have been the establishment of Sikh rule in the Punjab. Their preparations to this end were aimed directly and exclusively against the Muslims. Whether the Hindus who formed the bigger minority in the Punjab, would ultimately have acquiesced in the fulfillment of Sikh ambitions at their expense, is doubtful; but for the time being they made common cause with the Sikhs. The activities and preparations of the two, therefore, run parallel to each other and even where active conspiracy between them is not evident, the fact that they regarded the Muslims as their common enemy created mutual disposition towards collaboration which virtually amounted to a conspiracy and let [sic] to concerted effort’ (1948: 1-2).
Chaudhri Muhammad Ali, who represented Pakistan in the Steering Committee of the Partition Council set up by the colonial government, and was later prime minister of Pakistan (1955-56), alleged in his book, The Emergence of Pakistan, that the Sikh leadership at the highest level, especially the Maharajas of Patiala and Kapurthala, were involved in a macabre conspiracy to wipe out all Muslims from East Punjab.
The former Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court, Muhammad Munir, one of the two members nominated by the Muslim League to the Punjab Boundary Commission, admitted in his book, From Jinnah to Zia, that the first large-scale communal attack in Punjab occurred in the Rawalpindi region in March 1947 against Sikhs and Hindus, and its perpetrators were Muslims (1980: 17). He reiterated the charge that the Sikhs had a plan to eradicate all traces of Muslim presence in the eastern parts of Punjab.
Extract: http://books.hindustantimes.com/2011/09/extract-the-punjab-bloodied-partitioned-and-cleansed/
Review in The Asian Age: http://www.asianage.com/books/conspiracies-partition-635
Review in the Deccan Chronicle: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/lifestyle/books/conspiracies-partition-459
Punjab: Colonial discourse and beyond by Amandeep Singh
Punjab: Colonial discourse and beyond
Many times there has been an interesting question that is raised in academic circles, “How did the miniscule population from Europe, not only controlled, but also ruled, over the greater majority of their colonies?”
One reason that scholars have pointed out is that beyond the military and political control, the rule of the European imperialist countries extended and penetrated deep into the psyche of a common man in their colonies, making him accept the superiority of ‘value’ system of Europe over its native tradition. More than its legal authority, the control of Europe and so called ‘West’, extended to enslave the minds of their colonial population. Beyond providing a political and economic governance, European interaction with their colonies in east brought about a fresh wave of meanings to society and culture that influenced their native language, music, art, religion, education, law, justice, economic system, architecture, medicine, technology and traditional value system. For executing Divide and Rule, it is important to first divide the psyche of a common man. Division is nothing but a subjective phenomenon that creates smaller independent units from a larger group. In order to create independent smaller units, it is important to construct some kind of boundaries of each unit and identify a relationship within the unit and that can be used as a symbol of ‘identity’ of that unit. The persuasions used for creation of these boundaries included, race-caste, language, religious group, geographical location etc. Each smaller unit carries a psyche of common connection within a group and comparison with other different groups and that becomes central nervous system of ‘Division’.
Read full article: http://www.sikhnet.com/news/punjab-colonial-discourse-and-beyond
How caste matters and doesn’t matter by Surinder S. Jodhka
The Colonial Eye: British Empire Images of the Punjab
“The Colonial Eye: British Empire images of the Punjab, India 1912 – 1947”.
On Sunday 19th February 2012 at 2pm (Free, booking is required)
at Phoenix Cinema 52 High Road East Finchley London N2 9PJ 020 8444 6789 (for bookings) www.phoenixcinema.co.uk
As part of the Phoenix Cinema ‘ From the Archives’ series Tajender Sagoo has curated a series of short films produced during the British rule of India with a focus on the Punjab. The screening will bring together public information and travelogue films found in British public archives and rarely seen on the big screen. (mostly silent films).
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with four specialists on South Asian film, popular culture and history: Dr Virinder Kalra of the University of Manchester, Dr Yasmin Khan of Royal Holloway, University of London, Dr Anandi Ramamurthy of the University of Central Lancashire and Dr Richard Osbourne of Middlesex University.
Punjab Research Group 
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