The Dalit Studies Conference
A conference organized and funded by
Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI)
with additional support from the University of Pennsylvania's
Center for Africana Studies
Department of South Asia Studies
South Asia Center
and Temp Solutions
Hosted at
The Inn at Penn
3600 Sansom Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Regent / St. Mark’s Room on the lobby level / second floor
Registration Is Required of All Non-Panelists
Six Dalit Paradoxes
D. Shyam Babu & Chandra Bhan Prasad, Economic & Political Weekly, June 6, 2009
The Center for the Advanced Study of India with the Department of South Asia Studies, the South Asia Center and the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania will hold a major conference on critical issues relating to Dalit Studies December 3-5, 2008 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This will be the most significant conference on Dalit Studies to be held in an academic institution in the United States and we are pleased that the University of Pennsylvania has taken a lead on this front.
We plan to bring together academics and intellectuals from both within and outside of formal academic institutions, including the many organic intellectuals who have kept alive India’s Dalit movement by following Dr. Ambedkar’s injunction to “educate, organize, and agitate.” The purpose of the conference will be to evaluate strategies for ensuring that Dalit agendas are recognized by and incorporated into mainstream academic dialogue and to assess the various political and social agendas, both contemporary and historical, that have sought to improve the lives of Dalits. These include Dalit political formations; print media and literary movements; colonial and postcolonial governmental practices and policies; initiatives for social and economic empowerment; feminist struggles; critiques of nationalist and radical movements; and diasporic activism. The conference will result in the production of an edited volume that will bring various Dalit agendas into dialogue and examine the conditions and contradictions of Dalit social mobility in contemporary India.
The University of Pennsylvania has been at the forefront of area studies since 1942 when Prof. W. Norman Brown pioneered the study of modern India fifteen years before area studies began appearing at other US colleges and universities. This legacy strongly continues at the School of Arts and Sciences through the work of the Department of South Asian Studies, the mission of the South Asia Center, and the superior holdings of the South Asian Studies Collection at Penn’s Van Pelt Library. The Center for the Advanced Study of India, founded in 1992 by political scientist, Prof. Francine Frankel, further expands Penn’s scholarly leadership on South Asian studies with its focus on contemporary India. In 2006, Prof. Devesh Kapur became the new director. Today, the Center for the Advanced Study of India is recognized as a national resource and the sole research institution in the US dedicated to the study of contemporary India, addressing the urgent need for objective knowledge of India’s rapidly changing society, politics and economy, and the processes of transformation underway in an ancient civilization emerging as a major power.
We look forward to seeing you in Philadelphia!
Prof. Devesh Kapur
Director & Madan Lal Sobti Professor
for the Study of Contemporary India
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Dr. Ramnarayan S. Rawat
Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow
in South Asian History (2006-2009)
Department of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Agenda
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
5:30-5:45 PM Welcome and Introduction to the Conference
Devesh Kapur, CASI Director, University of Pennsylvania; and Ramnarayan Rawat, Department of South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania
5:45-6:00 PM Opening Remarks – Provost Ronald Daniels, University of Pennsylvania
6:00-7:30 PM Keynote Speaker – Dr. Narendra Jadhav, Vice Chancellor, University of Pune
“Empowerment of Dalits and Adivasis Role of Education in the Emerging Economy”
Thursday, December 4, 2008
8:00-8:30 AM Breakfast, Woodlands C / D (lobby level / second floor)
8:30-10:30 AM Panel I: The Political Paradox
Chair: Priya Joshi, Temple University
Ramnarayan Rawat, University of Pennsylvania
Chinnaiah Jangam, Wagner College
Gopal Guru, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Discussant: Douglas Haynes, Dartmouth College
10:30-10:45 AM Coffee Break
10:45 AM to 12:45 PM Panel II: The Religious Paradox
Chair: Jamal J. Elias, University of Pennsylvania
Sanal Mohan, M.G University (Kottayam, Kerala)
Rajkumar Hans, M.S. University (Baroda, Gujarat)
Rupa Viswanath, University of Pennsylvania
Discussants: Lucinda Ramberg, University of Kentucky
12:45-1:45 PM Lunch, Woodlands C / D
1:45-3:45 PM Panel III: The Paradox of Indian Feminism
Chair: Ania Loomba, University of Pennsylvania
Shailaja Paik, Union College
Laura Brueck, University of Colorado, Boulder
Jebroja Singh, William Patterson University
Discussant: Mrinalini Sinha, Pennsylvania State University
3:45-4:00 PM Coffee Break
4:00-5:30 PM Roundtable I
The African-American and Dalit Experiences: A Comparative Discussion of Marginality and Empowerment
Chair: Ramnarayan Rawat, University of Pennsylvania
Barbara D. Savage, University of Pennsylvania; Tukufu Zuberi, University of Pennsylvania; Gopal Guru, Jawaharlal Nehru University;
and Chandra Bhan Prasad, The Pioneer
Friday, December 5, 2008
8:00-8:30 AM Breakfast, Woodlands C / D (lobby level / second floor)
8:30-10:30 AM Panel IV: The Paradox of Marxist and Non-Brahman Ideologies
Chair: Atul Kohli, Princeton University
K. Satyanarayana, The English and Foreign Languages University (Hyderabad)
Hugo Gorringe, University of Edinburgh
MSS Pandian, Centre for the Study of Developing Socieites (New Delhi)
Discussant: Sudipta Kaviraj, Columbia University
10:30-10:45 AM Coffee Break
10:45 AM to 12:45 PM Panel V: The Paradox of Postcolonial State
Chair: Gail Omvedt, Indian Institute of Advanced Study
Sambaiah Gundimeda, SOAS, University of London
D. Shyam Babu, Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies
Surinder Jodhka, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Discussant: Steven I. Wilkinson, University of Chicago
12:45-1:30 PM Lunch, Woodlands C / D
1:30-3:30 PM Panel VI: The Paradox of the Market
Chair: Narendra Jadhav, University of Pune
Chandra Bhan Prasad, The Pioneer, and Devesh Kapur, CASI, University of Pennsylvania
Karthik Muralidharan, University of California, San Diego
Katherine S. Newman, Princeton University, and Paul Attewell, CUNY
Discussant: Lant Pritchett, Harvard University
3:30-3:45 PM Coffee Break
3:45-5:30 PM Roundtable II.
India’s Future and the Future of Dalits
Chair: Devesh Kapur, University of Pennsylvania
Narendra Jadhav, University of Pune; Gail Omvedt, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, JJ Irani, Tata