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CISAR Newsletter: January 14, 2020
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Time: 5
:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Location: C.K. Choi 120
Presenter: Shradha Ghale
This event is in collaboration with the UBC Himalaya Program, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, School of Journalism, and the School of Forestry.
At a time when biodiversity loss threatens humanity, few can deny the importance of protecting forests and wildlife. But what measures are being used to achieve the goal of conservation and how do they affect people at the margins? This talk by one of Nepal's foremost independent journalists will address this question by examining the experiences of people who live around Nepal's national parks, as revealed through her long-term investigative reporting on this issue.
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Time: 5
:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Location: C.K. Choi 120
Presenters: Sonia Singh & Aven Sidhu
This event is in collaboration with the South Asian Health Research Collaborative (SAHRC).
While South Asians represent the largest visible minority population in Canada, they make up a very small percentage of research participants. Barriers to participation include fear, mistrust, language, cultural differences, and poor understanding of what research entails. The South Asian Health Research Collaborative (SAHRC) has collaborated with various community organisations within the South Asian community to explore the health research priorities of the South Asian community and to expand the capacity for health research. By working with the South Asian community, SAHRC hopes to empower the community in identifying the research areas that they want explored and to increase the South Asian representation in health research.
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Time: 5
:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Location: Coach House, Green College
Presenter: Francesca Cassio
This event is in collaboration with UBC Green College and the Department of Asian Studies.
Through postcolonial and contemporary gender studies theories, the presenter will discuss and showcase secular and religious repertoires, ranging from the songs performed by the tawaif-s (courtesans) to the sung poetry associated with spiritual contexts and practices. Delving into the social norms that in Pre-Partition India prevented women from becoming professional singers, the speaker will debate the public sphere of music performances dominated by male-restricted mehfils. Based on several years of fieldwork in South Asia, and rigorous musical training under the guidance of renowned singers of Indian music, Dr. Cassio's talk will explore two opposite expressions of 'love' - as portrait in the tawaifs' songs and in the Sikh kirtan repertoire - whose nuances though allow to go beyond the (colonial) binary categories of secular and 'religious', dissolving into the spiritual dimension of the sung poetry, in which the 'beloved' is disembodied.
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Punjabi-Canadian Family Honours the Memory of their Son
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Learning about Punjabi language and culture through UBC's Punjabi Oral History class made a lasting impression on former science student, Onkarbir Singh Toor (BSc'16).
After Onkarbir's sudden premature passing, Onkarbir's family honoured his memory in 2017 by establishing a fund to enrich the Punjabi Studies program. Over the years their donation supported activities such as community engagement, enriched course content, and graduate student research and mobility.
For example, students in an advanced-level oral history class-Documenting Punjabi Canada (ASIA 475)-received training and support to interview members of the Punjabi Canadian community. Students documented these conversations by creating multimedia projects, and they explored topics closely tied to their own lived experiences such as immigration, identity and gender inequality. Check out their video projects at
http://blogs.ubc.ca/punjabisikhstudies/oral-history/projects/
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Recently, the Toor family endowed the Onkarbir Singh Toor Memorial Punjabi Studies Enhancement Fund.
Their generosity ensures that future generations of students will continue to benefit from Punjabi studies and community-based research components.
The Toor family hopes to encourage others to support Punjabi Studies at UBC. To make a gift that supports Punjabi language, history and culture please contact Dave Keefe, Associate Director, Development at
[email protected]. Gifts to the Onkarbir Singh Toor Memorial Punjabi Studies Enhancement Fund can be made online at
https://memorial.support.ubc.ca/onkarbir-singh-toor/.
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A qualitative study exploring the beliefs and understanding of advance care planning or advance directives within members of the South Asian community from Richmond and Surrey, British Columbia.
This study, affiliated with Vancouver Coastal Health, is led by Dr. Amrish Joshi, a palliative care physician in Richmond Hospital. He and his team are hoping to speak with individuals from the South Asian community to explore their understanding of advance care planning. Their goal is to provide culturally-sensitive and informed care to patients and families from the South Asian communities. Although the study specifies the Richmond and Surrey communities, they are also looking at expanding to include other areas.
For further details, or to participate in the study, please contact Lara Musa (Nurse Research Coordinator) at [email protected].
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Due Date: January 31, 2020 at 12:00 AM
Applications are now being accepted for the Asian Division's 2020 Florence Tan Moeson fellowship, open to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty at all levels, librarians, and independent scholars and researchers, to support a minimum of five business days of research in the Asian Reading Room of the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.).
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Join the Canadian South Asian Studies Association (CSASA)
South Asianists from across Canada gathered last June at UBC, and decided together to establish a national scholarly association for faculty actively researching and teaching on South Asia-Canada and graduate students enrolled in related Canadian M.A. and Ph.D. programmes, to be known as the Canadian South Asian Studies Association (CSASA) as a non-profit member affiliated with the
Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Ideally, we hope to have some kind of CSASA presence at the next
Congress (2020), at Western University.
As a first step, all graduate students, faculty members, and researchers with research interests in South Asia are invited to join CSASA-L, a newly created listserv hosted at Athabasca University, where subscribers can share professionally relevant information related to teaching, research, resources, and events on South Asia-Canada. If you would like to join, please read the
listserv rules and enter your
subscription details.
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Student Directed Seminar
*Register for this Term 2 Class*
Facilitators: Suyesha Dutta and Morgan Khan
Supervisor: Dr. Anne Murphy
Course Title: ASIA 476Z 001 and HIST 390A
When: Term 2
Days: Tuesday/Thursday
Time: 12:30 - 2:00pm
Room: IKB 191
Postcolonial and Subaltern Studies have been important in critiquing the nation and its citizens. These have also helped critique the nationalist project that drives the Indian state. In this course, we will critically read and compare approaches based on the changing nature of subaltern studies, socio-economic and socio-cultural identity formation, and the way dissent manifests itself in India. While there are a number of classes dealing with the history of pre-independence India, there is a marked absence of classes dealing with the history of India post-partition. Abandoning the narrative at this time of deep divide needs to be rectified, and thus allowing students to explore the history and politics that resulted from the scars rendered by the Partition. It also enables students to engage with, and garner a deeper understanding, of the long reaching effects of colonialism, as they play out in the modern history of a post-colonial geography. We hope that this class will fill the gap speaking to the modern history of the Indian subcontinent.
Readings will draw on historiography, social theory, political economy, colonial and postcolonial studies, ethnography, and governance. Course material will be largely key secondary material although this will be supplemented with some primary material. The course is organised thematically rather than strictly chronologically, so that students will find it an advantage to have some awareness of the general history of colonial and post-colonial India. Evaluation will be based on class participation, a presentation of weekly readings (done once or twice through the semester), a final research project proposal (peer-graded), and its presentation thereafter.
This course does not require a prerequisite, but requires a submission of an expression of interest. Please send a statement of interest in about 500 words to
[email protected], briefly expressing your interest in the course and how you would be able to contribute to this seminar. The course is appropriate for students across every region and/or discipline.
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We've compiled a list of courses for Winter 2019/2020 with South Asia content. You can checkout the list
here.
If you're a UBC faculty member teaching a course with content pertaining to South Asia, feel free to contact us to list it on the CISAR website.
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