Skip to main content

CHS organises a seminar by Prof. Sudeshna Guha

CHS organises a seminar by Prof. Sudeshna Guha

Event From Date
Event End Date
Event Title
CHS organises a seminar by Prof. Sudeshna Guha
Event Details

CHS 10th Apr 2024

Abstract:

The long scholarship on materialities demonstrates the academic value of engaging with museums, collections, and curation. As important areas of research and knowledge production, object histories, collecting, and collections management practices provide unique insights into larger issues of sociality and implicate the politics of decolonization and their shifts through time. Importantly, they enable us to reflect upon practices of sorting, describing, archiving, and documenting. By drawing into histories of visualization and museums, and heritage-making in post-colonial India, I shall highlight the historical value of thinking through the material for exploring representation, and linkages in methods of inquiry beyond the politics of guarding disciplinary domains.

Prof. Sudeshna Guha teaches at the Department of History and Archaeology, Shiv Nadar Institute of Eminence, Delhi-NCR. She is the author of A History of India Through 75 Objects (Hachette India, 2022). Her current research is on aspects of Museum Archaeology and Heritage Studies. Among her forthcoming publications is an exhibition volume: Histories in the Making: Photography and Monuments in Nineteenth-Century India (DAG, 2024).

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.