Preliminary Program

Center for South Asian Studies Spring Symposium 2024 

South Asian Futures

April 10-12, 2024

UH Mānoa Hamilton Library, Room 301

Please note that this program is subject to revision up until the symposium dates; all revisions will be clearly noted.

Wednesday, April 10

4:00 Keynote Presentation: Vijay Prashad 

Thursday, April 11

8:45 Continental Breakfast

8:45 Welcome

9:00-10:00 Panel 1: Literary Futures

1. Utopian Histories: The Places and Times of Rahul Sankrityayan’s Baisvin Sadi – Anju Parvathy Biju, University of Pennsylvania
2. Dreaming Futures: Speculative Fiction’s Imaginings of Pakistan’s Future(s) – Nudrat Kamal, University of Pennsylvania

10:15-11:45 Keynote Presentation: Sadaf Padder

11:45-12:45 LUNCH

12:45-1:45 Panel 2: Recognition, Rights, Sovereignty

1. Tourism Futures and Afterlives on Nepal’s Tamang Heritage Trail – Ian Bellows, Cornell University
2. Sardar aur Sarkar: The Climate Justice Implications of Balochistan’s Sovereignty Movement – Aqsa Mengal, Yale University

2:00-3:00 Panel 3: Futures Past

1. Low carbon futures or futures past? : Examining complexities of energy transitions in rural Eastern India – Nikita Das, University at Buffalo
2. Anomalous Pathans in a Cosmopolitan City: The 1929 Hindu-Muslim Riots and New Political Reasoning in Colonial Bombay – Ninad Pandit, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
3. The Future as Critique – Tabinda Mahfooz Khan, El Colegio de Mexico

3:15-4:15 Roundtable: The Road Beyond Ningwasum: A Roundtable on Himalayan Indigenous Futures.

Presenters: Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, Charisma Lepcha, Elspeth Iralu, Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia, Mabel Gergan, Pasang Yangjee Sherpa, and Sara Smith.

4:30 Keynote Presentation: Film Ladhamba Tayem: Future Continuous, Zoom Talk and Q&A with Director Subash Thebe Limbu

6:15 DINNER in Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room)

Friday, April 12

8:45 Continental Breakfast

9:00 Panel 4: Future Socialities  

1. War of Narratives: Christianity, Iconoclasm and Decoloniality of Race and Religion – Shalini Kakar Independent Scholar
2. Dalit Futurism – Degenerate Desires to Deface Dalit Iconography – Aatika Singh, Stanford University
3. Sufi Futures in Sri Lanka: Saint’s Shrines and Ruptures of Space and Time – M. Shobhana Xavier, Queen’s University
4. (Re)contesting Rights Regimes: South Asian Women and the International Human Rights Agenda – Maha Ali, Leiden University

11:00 Keynote Presentation: Ritodhi Chakraborty

12:30 Closing