Dear Friends,

We open this semester on a much more somber note. As most of you know, Tarishi Jain, a Cal student and a Chowdhury Center intern who had just completed her freshman year, died when attackers stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery on July 1 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Berkeley community has expressed disbelief, anger, and an incredible amount of sorrow as we all mourn the senseless death of a young and vibrant student who had so much potential and so much to give. Here at the ISAS, we only knew Tarishi for a short time but we were immediately impressed by her focus, dedication, and passion for her work. By all accounts, she was a young woman who cared deeply about others and wanted to make a difference in the world.

All of us involved with international programs have felt a tremendous sense of loss and grief over Tarishi’s death. To quote from Professor Lawrence Cohen’s moving statement released earlier this summer, “Part of the task of the university and of this Center is to understand with precision and rigor the conditions of this violence, in Dhaka and elsewhere in Bangladesh. Part of the task is to understand how current political and state responses, in Bangladesh specifically, may be tied up to the escalating attacks…These are our times, and we must mourn with awareness…The challenge for the Chowdhury Center and for the Institute for South Asia Studies, the challenge for all who mourn the violent and cruel loss of Tarishi Jain and of her friends, is to understand far better than we do the specters of our times and how we must struggle to respond.” (Click box on right to read the entire statement)

Here at the Institute, we realize that it is even more urgent that we continue to do the work that we do, to continue with our programs, fellowships, research, and exchanges intended to understand conditions, responsibility, accountability and responses. We mourn Tarishi and all of those who have lost their lives in senseless acts of violence throughout the world and we dedicate our programs to them.
 
We have planned a small healing ritual in memory of Tarishi which will take place during our Annual Reception on Wednesday, September 7 from 4 to 6 pm. It will include a memorial table for which, if you like, you could bring a small memento (poem or small object). This guided moment of reflection will be led by Sarwang Parikh, a mental healthcare specialist. 

Please join us as we commemorate Tarishi and introduce the Institute and its programs.

This semester we are sponsoring and co-sponsoring a range of provocative talks and performances, including lectures by Ashok Gadgil (on arsenic in drinking water in Bangladesh), Yashadatta Somaji Alone (on Buddhist visual culture), NC Narayanan (on urban water and infrastructure), Farhana Ibrahim (on post-disaster resettlement among Muslims in western Gujarat), and famed Indus archaeologist Mark Kenoyer who will deliver the 4th annual Habib lecture on Pakistan Studies.

On the line-up also are book talks by Author Ali Eteraz, Political Scientist Ali Riaz, Historian Alice Clark, and scholar of AK Ramanujan, Guillermo Rodríguez. Dr. Rodriguez' lecture will include a short dance performance set to Ramanujan's poetry by Mónica de la Fuente, a multi-disciplinary Bharatanatyam and Kathakali dancer. 

Feminist historian and cultural critic Lata Mani brings her latest documentary, Poetics of Fragility, Cal alum Joyojeet Sen will screen his latest production, For the Love of a Man, a documentary on mega movie star Rajnikanth's fandom, and Subasri Krishnan will show What the Fields Remember, a documentary on the Nellie massacres that took place in the 80s in Assam.

And more events are being added to our calendar each week.

This semester we are pleased to celebrate the establishment of a new endowment, the Berreman-Yamanaka Fund. Established in memory of famed UC Berkeley Anthropologist, Professor Gerald Berreman, Professor Keiko Yamanaka and family, the goal of this endowment is to support Himalayan Studies across Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan. The official launch of this new program on October 14 will include a half-day symposium where leading scholars of this region will present papers followed by a reception celebrating the life and career of Professor Berreman. 

We welcome as our 2016-2017 Visiting Scholars, Dingkun Lei, a Ph.D. candidate from Tsinghua University interested in India’s Special Economic Zones, and Vislavath Rajunayak, an Assistant Professor of English at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, who works on tribal resistance movements in Andhra Pradesh.

We are delighted to announce two new full-time faculty hires. Asma Kazmi has accepted an appointment at the Department of Art Practice. Professor Kazmi's work deeply engages critical and performance theories, especially as they pertain to Islam and South Asia and she creates transdisciplinary, performative, relational works where people, media, and objects come together. She comes to Berkeley from the California Institute of Arts, where she served as permanent faculty and Co-Director of the Art Program. Learn more about Asma Kazmi at her website here.

Gregory Maxwell Bruce joins the UC faculty as Lecturer in Urdu language and literature in the Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies. Prof. Bruce holds a Ph.D. in Asian Cultures and Languages from the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught Urdu-medium courses on literature, Islamic mysticism, and South Asian culture in the Hindi-Urdu Flagship Program. His research interests lie at the intersection of literary aesthetics, intellectual history, and religious studies. Dr. Bruce writes ghazal poetry in Urdu and Persian, and has performed at mushairas and other literary events in the United States and India.

We bid a fond farewell to Mike Ganim, Finance Assistant at the ISAS. Mike is stepping down to pursue a retirement of well deserved rest and leisure, which he plans to kickstart by spending most of September traveling in Spain. We are sorry to see him go and wish him all the best in his travels in Europe.  

Lawrence Cohen, our Faculty Director, is on sabbatical leave this semester but the rest of us here at the Institute look forward to seeing you in 10 Stephens Hall this semester! 

Sanchita Saxena
-----

Fall 2016 Events. Please click on links for further information. 

PUBLIC LECTURES CONFERENCES & SYMPOSIA

1. Saturday, September 24, 2016
   Self, Sacrifice and Cosmos: Late Vedic Thought, Ritual, and Philosophy
   A conference in honor of Dr. Ganesh Umakant Thite’s Contribution to Vedic Studies
   8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. | 220 Stephens Hall
    
2. Friday, October 14, 2016
   HimalayanStudies@Berkeley
   A Symposium for Launching the Berreman-Yamanaka Fund
   2-6 p.m. | 10 Stephens Hall
    
3. Friday, November 18, 2016
   A Tale for All Seasons: The Rāmāyaṇa from Antiquity to Modernity in South Asia:
   A Symposium on recent studies in Rāmāyaṇa scholarship
   8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. | 341 Dwinelle Hall (DSSEAS Library)

FILMS AND DOCUMENTARIES

1. Monday, October 3, 2016
   The Poetics of Fragility
   A film by Nicolás Grandi and Lata Mani
   5-7 p.m. | 10 Stephens Hall
    
2. Monday, October 10, 2016
   For the Love of a Man
   A documentary exploring the phenomenal fan following of South Indian Superstar Rajinikanth
   5-7 p.m. | 10 Stephens Hall
    
3. Thursday, October 20, 2016
   What the Fields Remember
   A documentary film on the Nellie massacres that took place on 18th February 1983, in Assam, India
   5-7:30 p.m. | 10 Stephens Hall