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CSSS is organising a talk by Srirupa Prasad

CSSS is organising a talk by Srirupa Prasad

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CSSS is organising a talk by Srirupa Prasad
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Centre for the Study of Social Systems

School of Social Sciences

 

CSSS Colloquium

 

Srirupa Prasad

(Associate Professor, University of Missouri-Columbia)

 

Will be presenting a paper on

 

Gandhi’s Moral Politics and Plague in South Africa

 

Date & Time: February 8th, 2018 (Thursday), 3.00 pm

Venue: CSSS Committee Room, SSS-II

 

Abstract:  This paper argues that Gandhi’s involvement in the bubonic plague in early twentieth century South Africa (both in the relief work he organized and participated in as well as through his writings) was a critical phase in his political career. It highlighted the deep ambiguity of Gandhi’s opinion about the racist South African colonial state. The plague epidemic in South Africa also revealed some of the paradoxes in Gandhi’s politics of race and respectability as the author argues in this paper. While Gandhi was emphatic about the respect, which Indians deserved from their white rulers, he justified it on the ground that Indians were a superior people when seen in comparison to Africans.

 

Bio: Dr. Srirupa Prasad teaches at the Department of Women's & Gender Studies and Sociology, University of Missouri-Columbia. Her primary research interests are culture and politics of contagion, hygiene, body, and infectious diseases. She is also interested in issues of critical feminist pedagogy and teaching. She teaches courses on women’s health and globalization; feminist theories and methodologies; sociology of health; body and society, and gender in India. Her first book, Cultural Politics of Hygiene in India, 1890-1940: Contagions of Feelings was published from Palgrave Macmillan in 2015. It investigates genealogies of contagion in colonial India and highlights the dynamic and contested passages between contagion as a microbe and contagion as an affect. She is currently working on a new project studying the history and contemporary politics of tuberculosis and care work in India. 

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.