Recalling Democracy | Program

September 5-6, 2014

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

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