CASI Deep Dive: Urmilla Deshpande and Thiago Pinto Barbosa on the Complex Legacy of Pioneering Indian Scholar Irawati Karve
Urmilla Deshpande, Thiago Pinto Barbosa & Rohan Venkat
February 3, 2025
In this issue of India in Transition, CASI Managing Editor Rohan Venkat speaks to authors Urmilla Deshpande and Thiago Pinto Barbosa about their collaboration on Iru: The Remarkable Life of Irawati Karve (Speaking Tiger, 2024), what it was like to engage with Karve’s complex legacy, the impact of Eurocentrism in social sciences, and how they settled on “critical fabulation” fact-derived storytelling as the form for this biography.
CASI in the News
Congratulations to Nikhil Anand (CASI Associate Faculty Director & Associate Professor of Anthropology) who has been named Daniel Braun Silvers, W’98, WG’99, and Robert Peter Silvers, C’02, Family Presidential Associate Professor of Anthropology.
CASI Student Programs
CASI Summer 2024 Research Grant recipient Norah Das Rami, C'26 published "‘Itihashe Hatekhari’: These Children’s Books Link History to Everyday Life in the Present and Past" in the January 12, 2025 issue of Scroll.in. She was additionally the recipient of the 2024 Pulitzer Center International Reporting Student Fellowship.
Applications for CASI Summer 2025 Internships in India are now closed. Thanks to all who applied!
Read all about Summer Interns and Summer Research Grant recipients' experiences on the CASI Student Programs Blog!
Questions about CASI Student Programs?
Please contact Juni Bahuguna (Assistant Director, Student & Visitor Programs) at junib@sas.upenn.edu
Upcoming Events
February 19, 2025, 4:30pm at Annenberg School for Communication, Room 500
"Navigating Precarity: Artists on Gender, Race and Caste"
An Art Exhibit, Reception, and Panel Discussion (in partnership with Center for Media Risk, CASI, South Asia Studies Dept, and CARGC)
2024-25 CASI Seminar Series
February 13, 2025, 12 noon at CASI
"The Birth of Indian Liberalism"
CASI / South Asia Center / Political Science Dept / Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy Seminar with Rahul Sagar (NYU, Abu Dhabi)
February 20, 2025, 12 noon at CASI
"Retreat or Remain? Notions of a Full Life and a Slow Death from Sundarbans’ Eroding Coastlines"
CASI / South Asia Center / South Asia Studies Dept / EnviroLab / Environmental Innovations Initiative Seminar with Megnaa Mehtta (University College London)
February 25, 2025, 12 noon at PSPSE (Blank Forum)
CASI / South Asia Center / PDRI-DevLab / Political Science Dept Seminar with Nikhar Gaikwad (Columbia University)
February 27, 2025, 12 noon at CASI
"Dushkal Temporalities: Reframing Time in Planning for the Climate Crisis"
CASI / South Asia Center / Anthropology Dept Seminar with Lalitha Kamath (TISS, Mumbai; Penn Fulbright-Nehru Scholar)
March 5, 2025, 4:30pm at CASI
"AIIMS New Delhi and the Tumultuous Beginnings of Indian Biomedicine"
CASI / South Asia Center / South Asia Studies Dept / Dept of History and Sociology of Science / CGH Seminar with Kiran Kumbhar (CASI)
View Complete Spring 2025 Events List
Our Campus & Regional Partners
Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship
Application Deadline: February 7, 2025
A Program by the South Asia Center, the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships program provides allocations of academic year and summer fellowships funded by the U.S. Department of Education to institutions of higher education to assist meritorious undergraduate and graduate students undergoing training in modern foreign languages and related area studies.
Campus Location
CASI's office is located close to the heart of Penn's campus at the Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science & Economics at 133 South 36th Street (Suite 230) Philadelphia, PA 19104-6215.
