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SAA is organising a talk by Ananya Jahanara Kabir

SAA is organising a talk by Ananya Jahanara Kabir

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SAA is organising a talk by Ananya Jahanara Kabir
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SCHOOL OF ARTS AND AESTHETICS ANNOUNCES


A Talk by

 

Prof. Ananya Jahanara Kabir


Kinetoscapes: Archives, methods, and reasons for studying the global dance floor


At SAA Auditorium 19 January 2018, 5 pm

 

Ananya Jahanara Kabir, Professor of English Literature at King’s College London, is a literary and cultural historian who works on memory, embodiment, and post-trauma in the global South. She has also taught at the Universities of Cambridge, California (Berkeley), and Leeds. She is the recipient of The Infosys Prize for the Humanities (2017), and of fellowships from The Rockefeller Foundation, The British Academy, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

The ‘dance floor’ - a space, typically situated in a club in a city, which people visit to dance and dress up for- is now a global phenomenon. It has generated vast transnational industries of fashion, branding, and music, as well as innumerable local scenes through which people enjoy themselves on weekend evenings. From Motown to Bollywood, popular songs celebrate its pleasures and urge us to embrace them through by losing ourselves to the beat. But how did the dance floor emerge? What is its relationship to labour and leisure? Why is there still something highly desirable yet faintly illicit about spending our time in this fashion? And why should we pay any academic attention to the dance floor? In this lecture, I will unveil the secret history of the dance floor, moving from drum circles on sugar plantations, through Paris Noir and New York’s Jazz Age, to the proliferation of clubs worldwide. Desire, sexuality, and race will all be in the mix, as will the concept of the ‘kinetoscape’, that extends Arjun Appadurai’s formulation of ‘mediascapes’ et al in his book, ‘Modernity at Large’.

This talk will draw on the wide comparative analysis I have been conducting on African-heritage partner dances through the ERC-funded project, ‘Modern Moves’, which I direct. As the project moves through its final year, it will be an occasion to share challenges and successes on both methodological and conceptual levels.

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.