South Asia without Borders Seminar Series

this Thursday, September 8, 2011 4pm

CGIS South, Belfer Case Study Room S020, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA

Join us for "Peace, Harmony, and Development - AAA Doctrine of Jainism" the kick-off to our South Asia without Borders Seminar Series, Chaired by Prof. Parimal G. Patil.

The lecture will be led by Shugan Jain, who will illustrate how Jain rulers, Tirthankars (religious leaders who establish a ford), and the common man practiced the principles of non violence, multiplicity of viewpoints or many-sided truth and limiting possessions to become prosperous and live in peace and harmony with others as well as amongst themselves.

Next week...

Pakistan Seminar Series

Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 4 pm 

Saadia Toor, Associate Professor of Sociology,

Anthropology, and Social Work, College of Staten Island, The City University of New York

Chaired by Diane L. Moore, Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies and Education and Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School

Saadia Toor's scholarship revolves around issues of culture, nationalism, gender/sexuality, state formation, and international political economy. Her recent book, State of Islam: Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan, tells the story of the Pakistani nation-state through the lens of the Cold War, and more recently the War on Terror, in order to shed light on the domestic and international processes behind the rise of militant Islam across the world.

Prof. Toor uses the tools of cultural studies and postcolonial theory to understand what is at stake in discourses of Islam, socialism and the nation in Pakistan.  

Read about SAI Grantee AnneMarie Ryu's summer in India, among other places, in this recent Harvard Gazette piece.  Congrats to AnneMarie for a summer well spent!