Past Events
On Thursday, October 4th, renowned Indian filmmaker Anand Patwardhan '72 joined the Brandeis community for a screening of his film "Jai Bhim Comrade." President Lawrence welcomed Mr. Patwardhan to campus, describing his films as an invaluable contribution to social justice efforts across the globe and an inspiration to the Brandeis community.
From March 7-10, 2012, master performers virtuosically reunited two historically kindred stringed instruments through the common language of raga and tala. The MusicUnitesUs Residency featured musicians Homayun Sakhi, Afghan rubâb; Ken Zuckerman, sarod; Salar Nader, tabla.
On April 4 & 11, 2012, Professor Harleen Singh presented two lectures as part of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston course series A Visual Journey Through India: Past and Present.
On November 19, 2011, SASA presented their annual cultural show, MELA. The show included dance, music, spoken word and other performances based upon the theme "Pehchaan", a Hindi word meaning "identity."
On March 23, 2011, Dr. Maina Chawla Singh (American University / New Delhi University) presented a lecture titled "Being Israeli: Migration, Ethnicity and Gender in the Jewish Homeland" based upon her scholarship "Writing Our Lives: Migration Narratives of Indian-Jewish Women".
On April 13, 2011, Brandeis hosted a screening of the documentary "Made In India" about the human experiences behind the phenomena of "outsourcing" surrogate mothers to India.
Upcoming Events
“Dhan Te Nan! Onomatopoeia and Other Deployments of Film Sound in Contemporary Multiplex Cinema”
Monday, April 22nd at 5:00pm
Mandel Center for the Humanities, G03
Speaker: Dr. Sudhir Mahadevan (University of Washington)
Vishal Bharadwaj's Kaminey (Rascals, 2009) is only one among numerous recent films that integrate popular and well-known Hindi film songs from earlier decades into their soundtracks. Bharadwaj invokes the textures of film sound from an earlier era: the film's most popular song "Dhan Te Nan" invokes onomatopoeically, the soundtrack of a 1960s or 70s Hindi film action sequence. The aim of this presentation is to offer a survey of the formal functions of film sound in contemporary multiplex cinema. This event is associated with Eng20a "Bollywood: Popular Film, Genre & Society."
Soldiering Sustainability: Urban Ecologies and Political Imaginaries in Kathmandu and Mumbai
Monday, April 29th - 3:30-4:50pm
Mandel Center for the Humanities, G12
Speaker: Dr. Anne Rademacher (NYU)
In this talk, Dr. Rademacher will draw from long-term ethnographic engagement with the biophysical, cultural, and political dynamics of urban river degradation in Nepal’s capital city. She will show how discussions of urban ecology in Kathmandu are at the center of competing political imaginaries. She will then draw from more recent work among green design practitioners in Mumbai to consider how an emergent form of sustainability expertise, in this case environmental architecture, served as a critical arena within which new urban histories, and future sociopolitical imaginaries, were not only forged, but imbued with the highest of stakes. This is an open lecture to Anth151 "Nature, Culture, Power: Anthropology of the Environment." Co-sponsored with the Anthropology Department.
Unfriendly Bodies, Hostile Cities: Reflections on Loitering in Urban India
Wednesday, May 1st at 5:00pm
Heller School, Altman Amphitheater (G1)
Speaker: Dr. Shilpa Phadke (Tata Institute of Social Sciences)
Prof. Shilpa Phadke from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai, India) will be speaking about her research on gender and public space in relation to the recent nation-wide debates around sexual violence in India. Her interests include: Gender and the politics of space; the middle classes; sexuality and the body; feminist politics among young women; reproductive subjectivities; and pedagogic practices. Her previous publications include the co-authored book Why Loiter: Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets, and numerous articles, such as "The Gendered Usage of Public Space," "Re-mapping the Public: Gendered Spaces in Mumbai," and "If Women Could Risk Pleasure: Reinterpreting Violence in Public Space."