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CSSS organises a talk by Ameet Parameswaran

CSSS organises a talk by Ameet Parameswaran

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CSSS organises a talk by Ameet Parameswaran
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Centre for the Study of Social Systems

School of Social Sciences

CSSS Colloquium

 

 Ameet Parameswaran

(Assistant Professor, SAA/JNU)

 

Will be presenting a paper on

 

Theatricality, Geography and Worksites of Left

 

Date & Time:

April 4th, 2019 (Thursday), 11.00 am

 

Venue:

CSSS Committee Room (Room No: 13), SSS-II

 

 

Abstract: In thinking through the relationship between performance and the political, theorist and theatre scholar Janelle Reinelt (2015), drawing from Etienne Balibar, articulates the need to see performance as a possible ‘worksite of democracy.’ As distinct from a Habermasian position that conjoins citizenship to the category of cosmopolitanism, Balibar articulates a ‘citizenship in making’ arguing that “democratic work requires determinate matter and not just an ethics and juridical norms, and this sort of matter is only given in situation’ (Balibar 2004: 173). The present paper takes forward the framework by arguing that to understand worksites in relation to performance, one need to think through geography and rhythms of everyday. I analyse closely the performance titled, Atlas of Communism, directed by the Argentinean director, Lola Arias in Maxim Gorki theatre in 2016 that looks back at the life under GDR through memories of primarily women aged between 8 and 84 who narrate the truth about their own experience. Analysing how when the testimonials, memories and documents are organised in patterns of contrasts in ‘counter-point,’ the paper explores how the geography and the Left itself is redefined and re-imagined for the contemporary.

Bio: Dr. Ameet Parameswaran is currently Assistant Professor, Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University and has published articles in the journals such as TRI, Performance Research. His monograph, Performance and the Political: Power and Pleasure in Contemporary Kerala (Orient Blackswan), was published in 2017.  His larger areas of interest are political theatre and performance, neoliberalism, region studies, and performance theory.

 

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.