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Recalling Democracy | Program

September 5-6, 2014

Friday, September 5

8:30 am: Registration and coffee

8:45 am: Welcome and opening remarks

9:00 - 11:00 am  |  The Democratic Conceit

Chair: Juan Cole, Department of History, University of Michigan

  • Itty Abraham, Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, "Traitors, Mutineers, Strikers, Letter-Writers: Examining the idea of diasporic patriotism"
  • Sankaran Krishna, Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii at Manoa, "Spatializing the World: foreign policy and middle class hegemony in postcolonial India" 
  • Ritu Gairola Khanduri, Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Arlington, "'Why should we go to the past?' Indian War Comics and the country as a 'core value'"

Discussant: Geoff Eley, Department of History, University of Michigan

11:00 - 11:15 am Coffee Break

11:15 am - 1:15 pm  |  Constitutionalism: Then and Now

Chair: Vikramaditya S, Khanna, University of Michigan Law School

  • Rohit De, Centre for History and Economics, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, "A Constitution for the Butcher: Economic Rights and Religious Rites in the Indian Republic"
  • Kalyani Ramnath, Department of History, Princeton University, "Making the Modern Nation on Marina Beach: Civil Liberties Lawyering in Madras"
  • Sandipto Dasgupta, Newton International Fellow of the Royal Society and British Academy, "Purloined By Lawyers: Administrators, Lawyers, and the Contest over the Constitution"

Discussant: Manu Goswami, Department of History, New York University

2:00 - 4:00 pm  |  Practicing Democracy

Chair: Manan Desai, Department of American Culture, University of Michigan

  • David Gilmartin, Department of History, North Carolina State University, “Cyclical Time and Indian Democracy"
  • Anupama Roy, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, “Institutionalizing Democratic Uncertainties: ‘Election Time(s)’ in the life of Indian Democracy”
  • Satish Deshpande, Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, “Caste In/As Indian Democracy: Notes on the conceptual career of the “vote bank”

Discussant: William Glover, Department of History and Architecture Program, University of Michigan

4:00 - 4:15 pm Coffee Break

4:15 - 5:30 pm Keynote Address

  • Nivedita Menon, Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, “Science, Nature, Environment: Debates around development in late-20th to early-21st century India”

5:30 pm: Reception

Saturday, September 6

9:00 - 11:00 am  |  The Development Paradox

Chair: Mrinalini Sinha, Department of History, University of Michigan

  • Eleanor Newbigin, Department of History, SOAS, University of London, "The economics of democracy: tax, self-government and the citizen-subject in late-colonial India”
  • Julie Stephens, Center for History and Economics, Harvard University, "Economizing Sharia: The Possibilities and Predicaments of Islamic Political Economy in India and Pakistan”
  • Michael Levien, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, “Dispossession and Democracy: Causes and Consequences of India’s ‘Land Wars’”

Discussant: Matthew Hull, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan

11:00 - 11:15 am Coffee Break

11:15 am - 1:00 pm  |  Democracy and its Discontents

Chair: Ramaswami Mahalingam, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan

  • Manali Desai, Lecturer in Sociology, University of Cambridge, “Castes and the Democratic Imagination: Some Notes from Gujarat”
  • Priti Ramamurthy, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, “It’s for Sirisha, so beautyfull flower: Democratization of desire, Smallholder capitalism, and Life-making in rural Telangana"

Discussant: Farina Mir, Department of History, University of Michigan

2:00  - 3:45 pm  |  Democratic Futures

Chair: Aswin Punathambekar, Communication Studies, University of Michigan

  • Srirupa Roy, Centre for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen, “Curative Democracy”
  • Aditya Nigam, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, "Democracy, Populism and the 'Masses': Reflections from India" 

Discussant: Mary John, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi.

3:45 - 4:00 pm Coffee Break

4:00 - 5:00 pm  |  Concluding Roundtable

Rapporteurs: Mrinalini Sinha, Department of History, University of Michigan & Manu  Goswami, Department of History, New York University