Teacher Training Workshops

A Virtual Professional Development Workshop

“Bangladesh: Before and After Independence”

Saturday, October 16

Time:  9:00am - 12:30pm

Schedule

9:00am “Locating Bangladesh in Colonial Bengal”

A talk by Tariq Omar Ali (Georgetown University)

The history of Bengal for the first half of the 20th century.

Link to the YouTube recording

10:10am “After Partition, another Colonialism: East Pakistan, 1947 – 1971”

A talk by S. Akbar Zaidi (Institute of Business Administration, Karachi)

(Not recorded.)

The subjugation of the 'free' and independent people of East Pakistan by their co-religionists, West Pakistanis/Punjabi elites:  the lack of development in East Pakistan, the key question of language and representation in Pakistan's majority province, the 1970 elections and the genocide of 1971.

11:20am “Bangladesh at Fifty: Progress, but How?”

A talk by Saimun Parvez (North South University, Dhaka)

(Nor recorded.)

The early years of independent Bangladesh, the transition from East Bengal to a Bangladeshi identity: generals in power, elections, the Begums of Bangladesh, economic progress, secularism, a resurgent Islam, tolerance and anti-democratisation.

Registration

Participants must be K-12 teachers, two- or four-year college instructors or students enrolled in graduate education degree programs. If you would like to register for the workshop, or have questions, please contact William Carrick at [email protected].

To register, please send an email to <[email protected]> that includes your name, school affiliation, level of students taught, and subjects taught. Student registrants should include their school and degree program, anticipated graduation date, and a very brief statement of career goals.

There is no registration fee to attend the workshop.

For additional information, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]> or by phone at (212) 854-4565.

Supplementary readings will be circulated to participants and posted on the SAI website.

Speaker Bios:

Tariq Omar Ali is Associate Professor, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.  He earned his PhD at Harvard University in 2012.  His research and teaching focuses on nineteenth and twentieth century South Asia and global histories of capital, with a particular interest in how the material and everyday lives of ordinary men and women are shaped by transnational circulations of commodities and capital. In his first book, A Local History of Global Capital: Jute and Peasant Life in the Bengal Delta, (Princeton University Press, 2018), he explored how global capitalism shaped peasant life and society in the Bengal delta during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In his current ongoing project, he is examining how decolonization, independence, and the rise of the nation-state restructured the working lives of peasants, boatmen, itinerant traders, and small businessmen in post-colonial East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) in the 1950s and 1960s.

Saimum Parvez is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Science and Sociology, at North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.  His research interest includes media and politics, public diplomacy, and violent extremism. He began his career as a Journalist. After working 4 years at local and international media, such as Bangla Vision and BBCWST, he joined the department of International Relations at University of Chittagong as a lecturer in 2010.  He completed an M.A. in Global Communication in 2015, with a concentration in Public Diplomacy from Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, as a Fulbright scholar. Before that, Saimum completed an M.A. in International Relations from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh (2008).

Syed Akbar Zaidi is a Pakistani political economist, academic and author. He is currently serving as the Executive Director of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in Karachi.  From 2009-2021, he was a Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University.  He earned a Bachelors in Economics  from the University College (London), a Masters in Social Planning of Developing Countries from the London School of Economics, and a PhD in History at the University of Cambridge.  His most recent publication is Making a Muslim: Reading Publics and Contested Identities in Nineteenth Century North India (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Workshop Readings on Bangladesh

(Note:  Readings are optional and may be done before or after the workshop.  Readings  below are linked to PDF files – if there is no link, it will be posted shortly.)

Jahan, Rounaq.  “Genocide in Bangladesh.”  Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts.  Edited by Samuel Tutten and William S Parsons.  Routledge, 2004, 2008.

Jalal, Ayesha.  The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics, Harvard University Press, 2014.  Pages  135 - 176 (Selection runs across two book chapters:  Chapter 4 and Chapter 5.)

Kamal, Ahmed. “A Land of Eternal Eid—Independence, People and Politics in East Bengal.” Dhaka University Studies, 46, June 1989

Riaz, Ali. Bangladesh: A Political History Since Independence.  I B Tauris, 2016.  Pages 1 – 37. (Note:  PDF not yet available.)

Riaz, Ali and Saimum Parzev.  “Bangladesh at 50: Transformation of a Nation” The Diplomat, Issue 76, March 2021.

Shehabuddin, Sarha Tasnim.  “Bangladeshi Politics Since Independence.”  Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Bangaldesh. Edited by Ali Riaz and Mohamad Sajjadur Rahman.  Routledge, 2020.

Van Schendel, Willem.  A History of Bangladesh. Cambridge University Press, 2009.  Selections include: Timeline; Part I: The Long View.

Bibliography, "Locating Bangladesh in Colonial Bengal”

Rafiuddin Ahmed. The Bengal Muslims 1871-1906: A Quest for Identity. Oxford University Press, 1981.

Taj-ul-Islam Hashmi.  Pakistan as Peasant Utopia: The Communalization of Class Politics in East Bengal, 1920-1947.  Westview Press, 1992.

Harun-ur-Rashid.  The Foreshadowing of Bangladesh: Bengal Muslim League and Muslim League Politics, 1906-1947.  University Press Limited (Dhaka), 2003.

Joya Chatterji.  Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947. Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Neilesh Bose.  Recasting the Region: Language, Culture, and Islam in Colonial Bengal. Oxford University Press, 2019.

Ahmed Kamal.  State Against the Nation:  The Decline of the Muslim League in Pre-Independence Bangladesh. University Press Limited (Dhaka), 2009.

Tariq Ali.  A Local History of Global Capital: Jute and Peasant Life in the Bengal Delta. Princeton University Press, 2018.

February 29, 2020
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

This one-day workshop will examine the fragmentation, pre- and post-1947, of the Indian Subcontinent.  The workshop consists of four sessions on the partition and creation of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan; the partition of the Punjab; and on the status of Kashmir.  The workshop will feature two one hour lectures in the morning, followed by a discussion period with the first two speakers.  We will break for a one-hour lunch, provided by the South Asia Institute.  In the afternoon, there will be two sessions, each with a lecture and a discussion.

SCHEDULE

Saturday, February 29

9:30am – 10:00am

Registration with Coffee and Bagels, Muffins, Fruit

10:00-11:00am

Title

“Partitioning Punjab: Space, Identity, and Memory” 

Speaker

Rajbir S. Judge (Columbia University)

In this section, we will examine the Partition of Punjab. First, we will explore how space became an object to be divided. In other words, we will examine how the subcontinent became a homogenous whole that could then be disaggregated and partitioned. In particular, we will focus on the railroad in constructing this unified space. Second, we will examine the differentiation of peoples in this new homogenous space by examining caste and labor. We will do this by considering colonial technologies of rule that categorized and classified the population such as the census and photography, paying close attention to religion and communalism in Punjab. Finally, we will end by exploring the Partition of Punjab, memory, and individual testimonies.  

Readings

1. Bernard Cohn, “The Census, Social Structure and Objectification in South Asia” in An Anthropologist Among The Historians and Other Essays
2. Kenneth Jones, "Punjab and the North-West" in Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India

11:00am – 12:00pm

Title

“The Making of Pakistan and the Partition of India”

Speaker

S Akbar Zaidi (Columbia University)

The Partition of colonial India in August 1947, resulted in the creation of Pakistan, and in an independent India. Pakistan consisted of two wings, West and East Pakistan from 1947-71, and after a bloody war East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh. The history of the creation of Pakistan takes place in an alien land, colonial India, where Pakistan’s ‘Freedom Movement’ was undertaken. Many of those who were part of the struggle for an independent Pakistan, both its leaders and those who eventually migrated, were originally resident in the United Provinces of Hindustan and other parts of what eventually became independent India. In many ways, those who migrated, Muslim muhajirs, who made Pakistan their home after 1947, brought a hegemonic language and culture to be imposed on a newly-emergent country. In some ways, those who wanted an independent Pakistan ‘imagined nationality in an alien geography’, bringing with them a history lived in different regions, imposed on new territories.  My presentation will look at how Pakistan came into being, the nature of migration between India and Pakistan after independence/partition, and the consequences of the way partition took place.

Readings

none

Maps

British Empire 1909; British Empire 1909 - Prevailing Religions; India and Pakistan 1947; and Migration

12:05-12:15pm

Coffee break

12:15pm – 1:00pm

Discussion with Professors Rajbir S. Judge and S. Akbar Zaidi

1pm-2pm

Lunch (provided by the South Asia Institute)

2:00pm-3:15pm

“Two Partitions and a Divorce: The Ruptures that Paved the Road to Bangladesh”

Speaker:  Elora Shehabuddin (Rice University)

Situated on the northeastern corner of the Indian subcontinent and the northern tip of the Bay of Bengal, Bengal was partitioned in 1905 (annulled in 1911) into East and West Bengal, and then, irrevocably, again in 1947, into West Bengal and East Pakistan. In 1971, East Pakistan declared independence and became what is today Bangladesh. The first two ruptures have tended to be presented as the result of religious difference (since western Bengal is predominantly Hindu and eastern Bengal predominantly Muslim), while the separation of East Pakistan from West Pakistan, which together constituted the largest Muslim country in the world in 1947–71, has been celebrated as the victory of a linguistic and secular nationalism over religious identity.

My presentation will show how each of these ruptures was, in fact, far more complicated than an exclusive focus on religion and secularism would suggest and how the partitions of 1905 and 1947 paved the way for—but did not make inevitable—the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. I will address to the economic, political, and gendered concerns, resistance to, and consequences pertaining to all three moments; the place of Bengal, its culture, political leaders, and intellectuals, in the larger history of South Asia; and how these three dates have fueled the imagination of writers and filmmakers in the decades since.

Readings

1. Syed Waliullah, "The Tale of a Tulsi Plant."  The Escape and Other Stories of 1947. Edited by Niaz Zaman.  
2. "Two National Songs" and "Jahanara Imam's Wartime Diary" in "Chapter 10: Bangladesh," Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Volume 2. 

3:15-3:30pm

Coffee Break

3:30-4:45pm 

“Key Moments in the Making of Kashmir Today”

Speaker:  Suvir Kaul (University of Pennsylvania)

This talk will survey important events in the making of modern Kashmir in order to understand the genesis and nature of the political and humanitarian crisis in Kashmir today. I will call attention to the role of the British Empire in the creation of the kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir, to the Partition of British India into the independent nation of Pakistan and India, and to the subsequent “problem” of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Reading:  Suvir Kaul, "Indian Empire (and the Case of Kashmir," in Of Gardens and Graves: Kashmir, Poetry, Politics.

REGISTRATION

Participants must be K-12 teachers, two- or four-year college instructors, or students planning a career in education who are enrolled in, or recent graduates of, a graduate degree program. If you would like to register for either workshop, or have questions, please contact William Carrick at [email protected].

To register, please send an email to <[email protected]> which includes your name, school affiliation, level of students taught, and subjects taught. Students and recent graduates should include their school and degree program, anticipated graduation date, and a very brief statement of career goals.

There is no registration fee to attend the workshop. Books and materials will be provided to participants at no cost.

For additional information, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]> or by phone at (212) 854-4565.

SPEAKER BIOS

Rajbir Singh Judge is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life with affiliations in the Department of Religion and the South Asia Institute at Columbia University in the City of New York.   He earned his PhD in History at the University of California, Davis in 2018.  His research Interests include: History of South Asia, South Asian Religions, Postcolonial Theory, World History, History of Colonialism and Empire ,South Asian and European Intellectual History, Gender and Sexuality, and Sikh Studies.

His current project examines the ways in which Sikhism at the end of the 19th Century remained a generative site through which Sikhs and their diverse milieu in the Punjab contested not only British rule, but the very nature of sovereignty. More broadly, he specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of South Asia, with a particular emphasis on the Punjab. His most recent publications can be found in the Journal of the History of Sexuality and History & Theory.

Survir Kaul is the A. M. Rosenthal Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.  At Penn, he has served as the Director of the South Asia Center (2005-07) and as the Chair of the English Department (2007-10).  He received his B. A. (Hons.), M. A., and M. Phil. degrees from the University of Delhi, and his Ph. D. from Cornell University. His first job was at the SGTB Khalsa College in Delhi; since then, he has taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, at Stanford University, and at the Jamia Milia Islamia as a Visiting Professor. He has held post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Canterbury at Kent and at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University.  His research interests include 18th-Century British Literature, Postcolonial Literature and Global Anglophone Drama and Theatre, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Poetry and Poetics, Comparative Race and Empire Studies, and Transatlantic Studies. 

He has published four books, Of Gardens and Graves: Essays on Kashmir; Poems in Translation (Three Essays Collective, 2015; Duke University Press, 2016), Eighteenth-century British Literature and Postcolonial Studies (Edinburgh University Press, 2009), Poems of Nation, Anthems of Empire: English Verse in the Long Eighteenth Century (University Press of Virginia, 2000; Oxford University Press, 2001), and Thomas Gray and Literary Authority: Ideology and Poetics in Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford University Press, 1992; Stanford University Press, 1992).  He edited a collection of essays entitled The Partitions of Memory: the afterlife of the division of India (Permanent Black, 2001; C. Hurst, 2001; Indiana University Press, 2002), and coedited (with Ania Loomba, Antoinette Burton, Matti Bunzl and Jed Esty) an interdisciplinary volume entitled Postcolonial Studies and Beyond (Duke University Press, 2005; Permanent Black, 2005).

Elora Shehabuddin is Associate Professor of Humanities & Political Science, Rice University.  She received her A.B. in social studies from Harvard University and PhD in politics from Princeton University.  Her doctoral dissertation, “Encounters with the State: Gender and Islam in Rural Bangladesh” was awarded the American Political Science Association's Aaron Wildavsky Dissertation Award for best dissertation in Religion and Politics.  She has served as associate director of Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Rice University and was interim director in the 2011-12 academic year. Prof. Shehabuddin was assistant professor of Women's Studies and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, before moving to Rice in 2001.  She was a research associate in the Women's Studies in Religion Program at the Divinity School at Harvard University, and has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the American Association of University Women, the Social Science Research Council, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Prof. Shehabuddin is the author of two books, Reshaping the Holy: Democracy, Development, and Muslim Women in Bangladesh (Columbia University Press, 2008) and Enpowering Rural Women: The Impact of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh (Grameen Bank, 1992).

S. Akbar Zaidi is a Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University.  Zaidi earned a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He taught at Karachi University for thirteen years, and was a visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University in 2004-05.  He has been appointed as a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, South Asia Program, Washington DC; Research Fellow, Asia Fellows Programme, at the University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India; and Visiting Scholar, South Asian Visiting Scholars Programme, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.

Apart from his interest in political economy, he has research interests in development, the social sciences, and modern South Asian history.  His publications include Political Economy and Development in Pakistan (Rupa & Co., 2010); Military, Civil Society and Democratization in Pakistan (Vanguard Books, 2011);  Issues in Pakistan's Economy (Third Edition, Oxford University Press, 2015).  Prof. Zaidi co-edited the volumes (with  Saba Aslam and Farheen Ghaffar), Misperceptions about India-Pakistan Trade: Beyond Politics, United States Institute of Peace, 2017; and with Matthew McCartney,  New Perspectives on Pakistan's Political Economy: State, Class and Social Change, South Asia in the Social Sciences Series, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2019.

REFERENCE MATERIALS PROVIDED AT THE WORKSHOPS

Participants will be provided with the following books at the workshops.  Additional readings will be distributed via email and the SAI website.

Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea.  Faisal Devji.  Harvard University Press, 2013.

The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan.  Yasmin Khan.  Yale University Press, 2017.

The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India.  Urvashi Butali.  Duke University Press Books, 2000.

Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Volume 2.  Introduction to Asian Civilizations Series, Columbia University Press.  Third edition, 2014

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Rafiuddin Ahmed, The Bengal Muslims, 1871–1906: A Quest for Identity (Oxford University Press, 1996)

Jasodhara Bagchi and Subhoranjan Dasgupta, eds., The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and Partition in Eastern India, vol. 2 (2003)

Ishita Banerjee-Dube, A History of Modern India (Cambridge University Press, 2015)

Shelley Feldman, “Feminist Interruptions: The Silence of East Bengal in the Story of Partition,” Interventions 1:2 (1999), 167–182

Kaushik Ghosh.  “A Market for Aboriginality: Primitivism and. Race Classification in the Indentured Labour Market of Colonial India” in Subaltern Studies X.

David Gilmartin, ‘Partition, Pakistan, and South Asian History: In Search of a Narrative’, The Journal of Asian Studies 57, No 4, November 1998, pp 1068-95

Manu Goswami, "Mobile Incarceration: Travels in Colonial State Space" in Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space.  (University of Chicago Press, 2004)

Taj I. Hashmi, Pakistan as a Peasant Utopia: The Communalization of Class Politics in East Bengal, 1920–1947 (Westview, 1992)

Iftekhar Iqbal, “The Space between Nation and Empire: The Making and Unmaking of Eastern Bengal and Assam Province, 1905–1911,” Journal of Asian Studies 74:1 (2015), 69–84

Ayesha Jalal, ‘Conjuring Pakistan: History as Official Imagining’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27, 1995, pp. 73-89.

Kenneth Jones. Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India.  (Cambridge University Press, 1990)

Ahmed Kamal, State Against the Nation: The Decline of the Muslim League in Pre-Independence Bangladesh, 1947–54 (The University Press Limited, 2009)

David Ludden, “Spatial Inequity and National Territory: Remapping 1905 in Bengal and Assam,” Modern Asian Studies 46:3 (2012), 483-525

Neeti Nair.  Changing Homelands: Hindu Politics and the Partition of India.  (Harvard University Press, 2011)

Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903–1908 (People’s Publishing House, 1973)

Willem van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh (Cambridge University Press, 2009)

Dina M. Siddiqi, “Left Behind by the Nation: ‘Stranded Pakistanis’ in Bangladesh,” Sites 10:2 (2013), 150–183

March 2, 2019 - February 3, 2019
10:00 AM - 4:45 PM

This intensive, 2-day professional development course will explore the interconnected relationships between commodities, corporations, and states, and between commerce and politics.  It will focus attention on the regions of South Asia and the Indian Ocean and will trace specific commodities – from tea to textiles – to explore the forms of global capitalism we still see today.  By focusing on specific commodities and tangible goods, this course enables teachers to learn about and employ concrete yet flexible lenses applicable in a range of K-12 classroom settings. Commodities exchanges are both central and approachable topics through which teachers can approach global history, particularly in New York City - a center of both South Asian immigration and global trade.

The course will provide historical overview and offer insights into the how goods were traded, and how this exchange connected South Asia, Europe, and the Americas from circa 1750-2000. For participants who took last year's course titled "Trading Companies and the Rise of Global Capitalism," this year's course expands and builds on themes featured in March 2018.  However, no prior knowledge is required for this 2019 seminar.

The ASPD seminar "Indian Ocean of Goods" will begin by exploring the colonial history of commodities in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.  In the second session, the course will continue to illuminate the blurry lines between politics and commerce as well as colonial and post-colonial history. It will look at goods and companies, from tea to denim, whose histories connect pre-colonial South Asia to today’s globalized economies.  Moving from the eighteenth century to the present day, the course will assess how specific goods and companies animate the politics and economies of both the past and present.

Both sessions will include curriculum development and lesson plan workshops to discuss approaches to teaching about these regions and the rise of global capitalism more broadly in world religion, social studies, and geography classrooms.

Each day will feature three 45- minute lectures by an academic expert  followed by a 30- minute discussion period facilitated by the course instructor. The final session of each day will focus on curriculum development, led by an education specialist, with the goal of helping participants integrate the topical material discussed in the previous three sessions into material for their own classrooms.

The “Indian Ocean of Goods” workshop was organized and will be moderated by Melissa Turoff, Outreach Associate at Columbia’s South Asia Institute, Part-Time Faculty at New York University, and PhD candidate, History Department, University of California at Berkeley.

The Institute’s “Indian Ocean of Goods” workshop has been authorized by the New York City Department of Education for credit as part of the After School Professional Development Program. Teachers who wish to obtain PD credit must register for the course on the NYC DOE ASPDP site.  For more information, visit https://pci.nycenet.edu/aspdp/Home/AboutUs.   Teachers from private schools and colleges may register directly with the South Asia Institute (see below).

SCHEDULE

Note:  scroll down to accompanying course readings for each session

Saturday, March 2

10am-10:15am: Introductions, Registration, Coffee

10:15-11:30am: Calico and Cotton: Connecting India to the Americas in the long Eighteenth Century

Jonathan Eacott (History Department, University of California at Riverside)

11:30-11:45am: Coffee break

11:45am-1pm: Indigo Plantations and Knowledge in 19th Century India

Prakash Kumar (History Department, Penn State)

1pm-2pm: Lunch

2pm-3:15pm: Jute and Peasant Life in Colonial Bengal

Tariq Omar Ali (History Department, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

3:15-3:30pm: Coffee Break

3:30-4:45pm: Re-thinking how to teach trade, commerce, and early capitalism in the British Imperial World: 

Integrating Session 1 material into Teaching Resources 

Maria Hantzopoulos (Education Department, Vassar College)

Sunday March 3, 2019

10am-10.15am: Introductions, Registration, Coffee

10:15-11:30am: Historicizing Tea: A Local, Imperial, and Global Commodity

Jayeeta Sharma (History Department, University of Toronto)

11:30-11:45am: Coffee break

11:45am-1pm: The Arvind Group: Jewels to the Mughals, Jeans to the Public

Sudev Sheth (Harvard-Newcomen Fellow, Harvard Business School, Harvard University)     

1pm-2pm: Lunch

2pm-3:15pm: Swadeshi Steel: Tata and the Making of a National Industry

Mircea Raianu (History Department, University of Maryland)

3:15-3:30pm: Coffee Break

3:30-4:45pm: Re-thinking how to teach trade and commerce through business history: 

Integrating Session 2 material into Teaching Resources

Maria Hantzopoulus (Education Dept, Vassar College )

REGISTRATION

Participants must be K-12 teachers, two- or four-year college instructors or students enrolled in graduate education degree programs. If you would like to register for either workshop, or have questions, please contact William Carrick at [email protected]. Participants may register for one or both days.

To register, please send an email to <[email protected]> which includes your name, school affiliation, level of students taught, and subjects taught. Student registrants should include their school and degree program, anticipated graduation date, and a very brief statement of career goals.

There is no registration fee to attend the workshop. Books and materials will be provided to participants at no cost. The NYC DOE After School Professional Development Program requires teachers who register on their site to obtain PD credit to pay a registration fee directly to the NYC DOE. 

To register for Professional Development credit, teachers must register via the NYC Department of Education After School Professional Development Program:

https://pci.nycenet.edu/aspdp/Account/Login?ReturnUrl=%2faspdp.

For additional information, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]> or by phone at (212) 854-4565.

SPEAKER BIOS

Tariq Omar Ali is  Associate Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is affiliated with the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 2012 and his first book, A Local History of Global Capital: Jute and Peasant Life in the Bengal Delta was published by Princeton University Press in 2018. Taking readers from the nineteenth-century high noon of the British Raj to the early years of post-partition Pakistan in the mid-twentieth century, the book traces how the global connections wrought by jute transformed every facet of peasant life: practices of work, leisure, domesticity, and sociality; ideas and discourses of justice, ethics, piety, and religiosity; and political commitments and actions.

Jonathan Eacott is  Associate Professor of History at University of California, Riverside, joining the department in 2008 after earning his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He holds an M.A. in British History from Queen's University, Kingston and a joint B.A. in History and International Development Studies from McGill University, Montreal. Eacott's research focuses on the British and their empire from the eighteenth century to the present. His first book, Selling Empire: India in the Making of Britain and America, 1600-1830 was winner of the World History Association’s 2017 Bentley Book Prize. Selling Empire links four continents over three centuries to offer a new approach to the empire by revealing the importance of regions not under official imperial rule, including pre-conquest India and the post-independence United States, to imperial thinking and the exercise of British power.

Maria Hantzopoulos is Associate Professor of Education and Coordinator of Secondary Teacher Education at Vassar College.  She earned her B.A. from Boston University in History, her M.A. in Social Studies Education from Teachers College at Columbia University and her doctorate at Teachers College in International Educational Development with a specialization in peace education.  Before Vassar, she supervised pre-service student teachers at Columbia University’s Barnard and Teachers Colleges and conducted staff development for middle and high school teachers throughout New York City and nationally.  She taught and worked in New York City public schools for 13 years, served on public school planning teams, and worked with (and continues to work with) a variety of established youth organizations and professional educator organizations.  Prof. Hantzopolous is the author of the book Restoring Dignity in Public schools:  Human Rights Education in Action (2016), and  co-editor, with Alia Tyner-Mullings, of Critical Small Schools:  Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform (2012,) and with Monisha Bajaj, Peace Education: International Perspectives (2016).   Prof. Hantzopoulos is currently conducting a multi-sited research project on project-based assessment in NYC schools.

Prakash Kumar is Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies at Pennsylvania State University. He received his PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2004.  He spent two years as a postdoc at Yale University’s History Department, and was an Assistant and Associate Professor at Colorado State, before joining Penn State in 2014. He is the author of Indigo Plantations and Science in Colonial India (Cambridge, 2012) The book tracks the odyssey of indigo from its African/Caribbean beginnings, through the Carolinas and the Spanish colonial world, before exploring in detail its journey among the colonial plantations on the Indian subcontinent.  He is now working on two monographs on agrarian and rural histories in India.

Mircea Raianu is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland. He received his PhD in History from Harvard University in 2017 and his BA in History from the University of California, Berkeley in 2009.  His book manuscript, provisionally title The Incorporation of India: The Tata Business Firm between Empire and Nation, focuses on India’s largest and most influential corporate group since the early twentieth century. It shows how private capital played a key role in the construction of the Indian national economy. His research was supported by the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship. In parallel, he works on a series or related projects on land acquisition law, corporate sovereignty in the steel and mining belt of Eastern India, and the intellectual history of Swadeshi capitalism.

Jayetta Sharma was born in Assam (North-east India) and went to school there, and then to the University of Delhi, before winning a Commonwealth Scholarship to the University of Cambridge to do a PhD in History. Based on her dissertation, which combined social and cultural history approaches to the study of plantations, commodity capitalism, tea labour, political and cultural identity-making, she wrote her first book Empire’s Garden which was published by Duke University Press in 2011, and has recently been chosen by a team of international librarians to become an e-book that will be freely available for download to global audiences.  Her second book is tentatively titled Mountains of History and focuses on cross-cultural encounters around Darjeeling and the Eastern Himalayas. Along the way, she developed a keen interest in the study of food and circulation, as well as food and social justice, and is involved in several research and community projects around those themes, as part of the team at the new Culinaria Research Centre, at the University of Toronto, where she is an Associate Professor.

Sudev Sheth is currently the Harvard-Newcomen Fellow in Buissness History at Harvard University. He earned his PhD in South Asian Studies & History, with Distinction, from the University of Pennsylvania in June 2018. He completed an M.A. in History at the Centre for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2011. His dissertation, titled “Business Households, Financial Capital, and Public Authority in India, 1650-1818,” draws on a range of unpublished sources from India and Europe in rethinking the relationship between elite banking households, financial capital, and the rise and fall of multiple bureaucratized nodes of political authority between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.

Melissa Turoff is Outreach Associate at the South Asia Institute at Columbia, and a PhD candidate in the History Department at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is completing her dissertation titled “Between Nature and History: Francis Buchanan-Hamilton and the Naturalizing of Early Technocratic Rule in British India, 1780-1830.” Her research interests focus on the History of Modern Britain and the British Empire, late modern Europe, postcolonial theory and modern South Asia.  She is a Part-Time Faculty member at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University, and has taught at Rutgers University, LaGuardia Community College (CUNY) and at UC Berkeley. Before graduate school, she worked in news and documentary film production WNET.ORG, conducted research for several history museums, and has always been committed to public history.

READINGS

ASPD MIDTERM AND FINAL DOCUMENTS

Saturday, March 2, 2019

10:15-11:30am: Calico and Cotton: Connecting India to the Americas in the long Eighteenth Century (Jonathan Eacott)

Jonathan Eacott, “Making an Imperial Compromise:  The Calico Acts, the Atlantic Colonies, and the Structure of the British Empire”

Hampden, The Alarm II (1773)

11:45am-1pm: Indigo Plantations and Knowledge in 19th Century India (Prakash Kumar)

 From Indigo Plantations and Science in Colonial India by Prakash Kumar

“The Odyssey of Indigo”

2pm-3:15pm: Jute and Peasant Life in Colonial Bengal (Tariq Omar Ali)

From A Local History of Global Capital:  Jute and Peasant Life in the Bengal Delta

Required readings are pages 25 - 55.  Note:  the PDF file includes the complete book Chapters One and Two, pages 21 - 66.

Sunday March 3, 2019

10:15-11:30am: Historicizing Tea: A Local, Imperial, and Global Commodity (Jayeeta Sharma)

Jayetta Sharma, “A Tale of Tea”

“Tracts on Tea”

Maps:

Himalaya and Asia map

India and Assam map

Optional readings:

Jayetta Sharma, “‘Lazy’ Natives, Coolie Labour, and the Assam Tea Industry”

11:45am-1pm: The Arvind Group: Jewels to the Mughals, Jeans to the Public (Sudev Sheth)

From the Oxford India Anthology of Business History  (Both articles are in one PDF file.)

Maria Graham, “The Bazaar from a European Traveller’s Perspective”

C. A. Bayly, “The Family Firm: A Perspective”

2pm-3:15pm: Swadeshi Steel: Tata and the Making of a National Industry (Mircea Raianu)

Daniel R. Headrick, from The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940.  Chapter Eight, pages 276-298

OTHER REFERENCE MATERIALS PROVIDED AT THE WORKSHOPS

Participants will be provided with the following books at the workshops.  Additional readings will be distributed via email, with paper copies available at the workshop.

A Concise History of India.  Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf.  (Third edition, 2014).

Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Introduction to Asian Civilizations) (Volume 2, Third edition, 2014)

March 3, 2018 - March 4, 2018
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

This Professional Development workshop will examine the regions of South Asia and the Indian Ocean and the impact of European trading companies in these regions between 1600- 1900. It will explore how trade and politics intersected to create forms of global capitalism still seen today, and how these historical evolutions help us understand current debates about corporations and states, money and politics.

The first day will offer an historical overview and insights into the social, economic, and political forces that shaped both South Asia and Europe as they came into increasing commercial and imperial contact from circa 1650-1800.  It will begin by exploring the social worlds of early modern India under the Mughal Empire and delve into how this society was connected globally before significant contact with Europe. It will tackle the ways that European trade impacted this society, assessing the growth of the British and French East India Companies, and their similarities and differences between these companies. 

In the second session, the course will illuminate the blurry lines between politics and commerce as the British “company-state” became a dominant force in South Asia. Moving into the 19th Century, it will look at the diverse ways European trade continued to shape these regions by examining topics such as the Indian household, South Asian indentured labor, and overseas migration in the Indian Ocean world. Both days will conclude with curriculum development activities, breakout group discussions, and lesson plan workshops to discuss approaches to teaching about these regions and the rise of global capitalism more broadly in world religion, social studies, and geography classrooms.

Each day will feature three 45- minute lectures by an academic expert  followed by a 30- minute discussion period facilitated by the course instructor. The final session of each day will focus on curriculum development, led by an education specialist, with the goal of helping participants integrateing the topical material discussed in the previous three sessions into material for their own classrooms.

The “Trading Companies” workshop was organized and will be moderated by Melissa Turoff, Outreach Associate at the Columbia’s South Asia Institute, Part-Time Faculty at New York University, and PhD candidate, History Department, University of California at Berkeley.

The Institute’s “Trading Companies” workshop has been authorized by the New York City Department of Education for credit as part of the After School Professional Development Program.   Teachers who wish to obtain PD credit must register for the course on the NYC DOE ASPDP site.  For more information, visit https://pci.nycenet.edu/aspdp/Home/AboutUs.   Teachers from private schools and colleges may register directly with the South Asia Institute (see below).

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE, READINGS, & ASSIGNMENTS

Saturday March 3rd: 10:00am-5:00pm

10am-10.15am  Introductions, Registration, Coffee

10:15-11:30am:  “India before Global Capital”

Manan Ahmed (History Department, Columbia)

Readings:  

Five Hundred Years of Fear and Love

Turks and Mughals – India: Brief History of a Civilization

11:30-11:45am:  Coffee break

11:45am-1pm:   “Trade and Politics: The French East India Company and in South Asia”

Danna Agmon (Virginia Tech)

Readings:

Surgeons, Fakirs, Merchants, Craftsmen

The Private Diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai

1:00pm-2:00pm: Lunch (provided) and informal discussion

2:00pm-3:15pm:  “Trade and Politics:  The British East Company and the Early Modern Eurasian Encounter”

Philip Stern (Duke)

Readings:  

The English East India Company at the Height of Mughal Expansion

3:15-3:30pm: Coffee Break

3:30-4:45pm: “Re-thinking how to teach trade, commerce, and early capitalism in South Asia:

Integrating Session 1 material into Teaching Resources”

Maria Hantzopoulos (Vassar College)

ASSIGNMENT:  Midterm Response Paper

4:45-5pm: Wrap up, assessment and prep for next day

Sunday March 4th: 10:00am-5:00pm

10am-10.15am: Introductions, Registration, Coffee

10:15-11:30am: “From the Mughal to the British Empires in India: Political and Economic Transitions"

Robert Travers (Cornell)

Reading:  

The East India Company Raj, 1772-1850

Suggested Supplemental Reading:  Seir Mutaqherin

11:30-11:45am:  Coffee break

11:45am-1pm:   “European Trade and the Indian Household”

Durba Ghosh (Cornell)

1pm-2pm:  Lunch (provided) and informal discussion

2pm-3:15pm:  “Indian Indentured Labor and Migration in the Indian Ocean World in the 19th Century”

Julia Stephens (Rutgers)

Reading (without photos):  Her Middle Passage

3:15-3:30pm: Coffee Break

3:30-4:45pm:      “Re-thinking how to teach trade, commerce, and early capitalism in the Indian Ocean World: 

Integrating Session 2 material into Teaching Resources”

Maria Hantzopoulos (Vassar College)

ASSIGNMENT:  Final Project - Lesson Plan and Template 

4:45-5pm: wrap up, assessment, goodbyes 

REGISTRATION

Participants must be K-12 teachers, two- or four-year college instructors or students enrolled in graduate education degree programs. If you would like to register for either workshop, or have questions, please contact William Carrick at [email protected]. Participants may register for one or both days.

To register, please send an email to <[email protected]> which includes your name, school affiliation, level of students taught, and subjects taught. Student registrants should include their school and degree program, anticipated graduation date, and a very brief statement of career goals.

There is no registration fee to attend the workshop. Books and materials will be provided to participants at no cost. The NYC DOE After School Professional Development Program requires teachers who register on their site to obtain PD credit to pay a registration fee directly to the NYC DOE. 

To register for Professional Development credit, teachers must register via the NYC Department of Education After School Professional Development Program:

https://pci.nycenet.edu/aspdp/Account/Login?ReturnUrl=%2faspdp.

For additional information, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]> or by phone at (212) 854-4565.

SPEAKER BIOS

Danna Agmon is Assistant Professor, Department of History, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.  She earned an MA and PhD in Ph.D in Anthropology and History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  Her areas of interest include the French empire in India and the Indian Ocean, and the 17th-19th centuries, the French Empire, India, the Indian Ocean, colonialism,  global trade, and legal history.  Agmon is the author of A Colonial Affair: Commerce, Conversion, and Scandal in French India (2017

Manan Ahmed is Assistant Professor, History Department, Columbia University.  He earned his PhD at the University of Chicago.  His areas of specialization include Muslim intellectual history in South and Southeast Asia; critical philosophy of history, early modern and modern South Asia. His monograph, A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia (2016) is an intellectual history of a text— the early thirteenth century Persian history called Chachnama— and a place— the medieval city of Uch Sharif in southern Punjab, Pakistan. His current research is a comparative, global project on philosophy of history stretching from the thirteenth through nineteenth century, focusing on Arabic, Persian and Urdu histories and their relationship to the emergence of “World History” (Weltgeschichte) in the nineteenth century. He is the co-founder of the Group for Experimental Methods in the Humanities at Columbia. His work in Digital History focuses on spatial and textual understandings of medieval past.

Durba Ghosh is Associate Professor, Department of History, Cornell University.  She earned her PhD from University of California at Berkeley.  Her research interests focus on Modern South Asia, gender, and colonialism.  Ghosh’s publications include the co-edited volume, with Dane Kennedy, Decentring Empire: Britain, India and the Transcolonial World (2006); Sex and the Family in Colonial India: the making of empire (2006); and Gentlemanly Terrorists: Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919-1947 (2017).

Maria Hantzopoulos is Associate Professor of Education and Coordinator of Secondary Teacher Education at Vassar College.  She earned her B.A. from Boston University in History, her M.A. in Social Studies Education from Teachers College at Columbia University and her doctorate at Teachers College in International Educational Development with a specialization in peace education.  Before Vassar, she supervised pre-service student teachers at Columbia University’s Barnard and Teachers Colleges and conducted staff development for middle and high school teachers throughout New York City and nationally.  She taught and worked in New York City public schools for 13 years, served on public school planning teams, and worked with (and continues to work with) a variety of established youth organizations and professional educator organizations.  Prof. Hantzopolous is the author of the book Restoring Dignity in Public schools:  Human Rights Education in Action (2016), and  co-editor, with Alia Tyner-Mullings, of Critical Small Schools:  Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform (2012,) and with Monisha Bajaj, Peace Education: International Perspectives (2016).   Prof. Hantzopoulos is currently conducting a multi-sited research project on project-based assessment in NYC schools.

Julia Stephens is Assistant Professor at Rutgers University.  She earned her PhD at Harvard University.  Her research focuses on how law has shaped religion, family, and economy in colonial and post-colonial South Asia and in the wider Indian diaspora. Her forthcoming book manuscript is entitled Governing Islam: Law, Empire, and Secularism in South Asia.  It draws on wide-ranging legal archives to explore how colonial law constructed a religious/secular binary that was deeply influential, and vibrantly contested inside and outside colonial courts.  A new research project focuses on inheritance and diasporic Indian families, tracing the lives of Indian migrants by looking at the assets they left behind after their deaths, providing a window into the intersecting histories of diasporic families and the formation of state bureaucracies for managing global flows of labor and capital.

Philip Stern is Sally Dalton Robinson Associate Professor of History at Duke University. He earned his MA, MPhil, and PhD at Columbia University.  Prof. Stern’s work focuses on the history of Britain and the British Empire, particularly in the early modern period.  Current research projects focus on eighteenth-century British overseas exploration and cartography, the historiography of British India, early modern economic thought, the history of companies and colonization, and digital and data visualization approaches to the problem of colonial sovereignty.  His publications include The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India (2011); and two edited volumes: with C. Wennerlind, Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and Its Empire (2013); and with M.R. Hunt, The English East India Company at the Height of Mughal Expansion: A Soldier's Diary of the 1689 Siege of Bombay, with Related Documents (2015).

Robert Travers is Associate Professor, History Department at Cornell University.  He is an historian of Britain and the British empire. His academic research has focused mainly on the British empire in India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and tries to understand the political, social and cultural foundations of imperial power. He is especially interested in how the legacy of Mughal or Indo-Persian modes of imperial politics interacted with British empire-building in India.  He is the author of Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth Century India: The British in Bengal (2007), which examines the political thought of the first generation of British empire-builders in India, to show how British officials of the English East India Company tried to legitimize their conquests by appropriating forms and styles of rule from the Mughal Empire. His ongoing book project, titled ‘An Empire of Complaints: Indian Petitioning and the Making of the British Empire in India’, explores how everyday encounters between Indian petitioners and British officials shaped the practice of modern colonial rule.

Melissa Turoff is Outreach Associate at the South Asia Institute at Columbia, and a PhD candidate in the History Department at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is completing her dissertation titled “Between Nature and History: Francis Buchanan-Hamilton and the Naturalizing of Early Technocratic Rule in British India, 1780-1830.” Her research interests focus on the History of Modern Britain and the British Empire, late modern Europe, postcolonial theory and modern South Asia.  She is a Part-Time Faculty member at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University, and has taught at LaGuardia Community College (CUNY) and at UC Berkeley.

READING MATERIALS PROVIDED AT THE WORKSHOPS

Participants will be provided with the following books at the workshops.  Additional readings will be distributed via email, with paper copies available at the workshop.

A Concise History of India.  Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf.  (2002, 2014).

Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Introduction to Asian Civilizations) (Volume 2, Third edition, 2014)

November 19, 2016
10:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Robert Crews is Associate Professor in the Department of History, and Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University.  A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he received an MA from Columbia University and a PhD degree in History from Princeton University. His research and teaching interests focus on Afghanistan, Central and South Asia, Russia, Islam, and Global History. His latest research project explores Shia politics in Afghanistan.

Crews is the author of For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (2006), and has published two co-edited volumes, The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan (with Amin Tarzi), and Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands, co-edited with Shahzad Bashir. His most recent monograph, Afghan Modern: The History of a Global Nation was published in Fall 2015 by Harvard University Press.

READING MATERIALS

Copies of the following books will be distributed at the workshop to all participants:

Afghan Modern:  The History of a Global Nation by Robert Crews (2015)

Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Introduction to Asian Civilizations) (Volume 2, Third edition, 2014)

REGISTRATION

Participants must be K-12 teachers, two- or four-year college instructors or students enrolled in graduate education degree programs. If you would like to register for either workshop, or have questions, please contact William Carrick at [email protected]. Participants may register for one or both workshops.

To register, please send an email to <[email protected]> which includes your name, school affiliation, level of students taught, and subjects taught. Student registrants should include their school and degree program, anticipated graduation date, and a very brief statement of career goals.

There is no registration fee to attend the workshop. All books and materials will be provided to participants at no cost.

For additional information, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]> or by phone at (212) 854-4565.

November 19, 2016
10:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Inspired by egalitarian doctrines, Dalit communities in India have been fighting for basic human and civic rights since the middle of the nineteenth century. By focusing on the struggle of Dalit women in one arena - the realm of formal education-- Shailaja Paik examines a range of interconnected social, cultural and political questions of the larger Dalit movements. How did Dalit women who were doubly discriminated because of their caste and gender background, contribute to the Dalit movement? What did education mean to women? What were the distinct experiences of Dalit women? How were Dalit women's lives shaped by informal learning and formal education?

Shailaja Paik is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Cincinnati, and Faculty Affiliate, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Asian Studies. She earned her PhD at the University of Warwick and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale University, Visiting Scholar at Emory University, and has taught at Union College.  As a historian she specializes in the social and cultural history of Modern India. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of a number of fields: modern South Asia, Dalit Studies, gender and women's studies, social and political movements, oral history, human rights and humanitarianism. Her scholarship and research interests are concerned with contributing to and furthering the dialogue in anti-colonial struggles, transnational women’s history, women-of-color feminisms, and particularly on gendering caste, and subaltern history. Paik's first book Dalit Women's Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination (2014) examines the nexus between caste, class, gender, and state pedagogical practices among Dalit ("Untouchable") women in urban India. Her second book project focuses on popular culture in modern Maharashtra.

READING MATERIALS PROVIDED AT THE WORKSHOPS

Participants will be provided with the following books at the workshops.  Additional readings will be distributed via email and paper copies available at the workshop.

Dalit Studies.  Edited by Ramnarayan S. Rawat and K. Satyanarayana. (2016).

Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Introduction to Asian Civilizations) (Volume 2, Third edition, 2014)

ON-LINE RESOURCES

Annihilation of Caste Multimedia Study Environment (MSE) which was produced by Frances Pritchett, Professor of Modern Indic Languages, Columbia University and the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, with additional sponsorship and funding from the Southern Asian Institute, Columbia University. The text source for this version of the Annihilation of Caste is reprinted from: Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. 1. Bombay: Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, 1979, pp. 25-96. Annihilation of Caste was first published in Bombay, 1936; 2nd ed. 1937; 3rd ed. 1944. The site includes explanatory notes and some other important writings of Dr. Ambedkar.  

"Caste, Ambedkar and Contemporary India"  A virtual exhibit with resources for the study of caste at https://exhibitions.cul.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/ambedkar

REGISTRATION

Participants must be K-12 teachers, two- or four-year college instructors or students enrolled in graduate education degree programs. If you would like to register for either workshop, or have questions, please contact William Carrick at [email protected]. Participants may register for one or both workshops.

To register, please send an email to <[email protected]> which includes your name, school affiliation, level of students taught, and subjects taught. Student registrants should include their school and degree program, anticipated graduation date, and a very brief statement of career goals.

There is no registration fee to attend the workshop. All books and materials will be provided to participants at no cost.

For additional information, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]> or by phone at (212) 854-4565.

December 5, 2015
10:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Moderated by S. Akbar Zaidi (Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, and the School of International and Public Affairs)

Ali Riaz is University Professor and the Chair of the Department of Politics and Government at Illinois State University, at Normal, Illinois.  His primary areas of interest are political Islam, madrassahs, South Asian politics, and Bangladeshi politics. He has taught at Dhaka University and was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington D.C.  From 1995-2000, he was Senior Broadcast Journalist for the BBC World Service, Bengali Section, in London.  Among his many publications are Islam and Identity Politics among British-Bangladeshis: A Leap of Faith (2013); Inconvenient Truths about Bangladeshi Politics (2012); a volume of essays co-edited with Christine Fair, Political Islam and Governance in Bangladesh (2011), another edited volume, Religion and Politics in South Asia (2010); Faithful Education: Madrassahs in South Asia (2008); and Islamist Militancy in Bangladesh: A Complex Web (2008).

SCHEDULE

9:30am:  coffee, tea, and bagels

10:00am:  Introduction by S. Akbar Zaidi

10:15 – 11:15:  Talk by Ali Riaz

11:30am – 12:30:  Q & A discussion with moderator and speaker

11:30am:  Response by Akbar Zaidi and discussion

READING MATERIALS

Copies of the following books will be distributed at the workshop to all participants:

A History of Bangladesh by Willem van Schendel

Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Introduction to Asian Civilizations) (Volume 2, Third edition)

REGISTRATION

Participants must be K-12 teachers, two- or four-year college instructors or students enrolled in graduate education degree programs. If you would like to register for either workshop, or have questions, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]>.   Participants may register for one or both workshops.

To register, please send an email to [email protected] which includes your name, school affiliation, level of students taught, and subjects taught. Student registrants should include their school and degree program, anticipated graduation date, and a very brief statement of career goals.

There is no registration fee to attend the workshop.  All books and materials will be provided to participants at no cost. 

For additional information, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]> or by phone at (212) 854-4565.

November 21, 2015
10:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Moderated by S. Akbar Zaidi (Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, and the School of International and Public Affairs)

Neil DeVotta is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Wake Forest University.  His research interests include South Asian security and politics, ethnicity and nationalism, ethnic conflict resolution, and democratic transition and consolidation.  He is the author of Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).  In addition to coauthoring and editing books on Sri Lanka and India, respectively, his publications have appeared in Nations and Nationalism, Journal of Democracy, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Journal of International Affairs, and Contemporary South Asia.  His current research examines the links between nationalist ideologies and communal violence in South Asia.

SCHEDULE

9:30am:  coffee, tea, and bagels

10:00am:  Introduction by S. Akbar Zaidi

10:15 – 11:15:  Talk by Neil DeVotta 

11:30am – 12:30:  Q & A discussion with moderator and speaker

11:30am:  Response by Akbar Zaidi and discussion

READING MATERIALS

Copies of the following books will be distributed at the workshop to all participants:

Sri Lanka in the Modern Age: A History by Nira Wickramasinghe

Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Introduction to Asian Civilizations) (Volume 2, Third edition)

REGISTRATION

Participants must be K-12 teachers, two- or four-year college instructors or students enrolled in graduate education degree programs. If you would like to register for either workshop, or have questions, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]>.   Participants may register for one or both workshops.

To register, please send an email to [email protected] which includes your name, school affiliation, level of students taught, and subjects taught. Student registrants should include their school and degree program, anticipated graduation date, and a very brief statement of career goals.

There is no registration fee to attend the workshop.  All books and materials will be provided to participants at no cost. 

For additional information, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]> or by phone at (212) 854-4565.

Schedule:

9:30am            Coffee, tea, bagels, muffins

10:00am          Rachel McDermott (Barnard), “An Introduction to Teaching Indian civilization” 

Introduction to teaching about Indian civilization with attention to both its unity and its diversity, and to religious thought and practice (Vedic, Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh).

11:15am          Break

11:30am          Richard Davis (Bard), "Teaching the Bhagavad Gita, the 'Hindu Bible’”

The Bhagavad Gita is by far the most often translated and the most often taught of all Hindu religious works.  Davis will discuss several different ways to approach the text: (1) as part of a larger epic work, the Mahabharata, (2) as a philosophical work of its own time in classical India, (3) as a key text for Indian nationalists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, like Gandhi and Vivekananda, and (4) as a work that has also challenged American readers, like Thoreau and Oppenheimer, and still can challenge contemporary students and readers

12:30pm          Lunch (provided) and conversation.

1:30pm           Jack Hawley (Barnard), "Krishna in the Braj Country."

Until the 19^th century, the Bhagavata Purana may well have been more important than the Bhagavad Gita to many (perhaps most) Hindus.  The Bhagavata Purana especially celebrates the world of the child and adolescent Krishna in the Braj country of northern India, and that region, centering on Mathura and Brindavan, is still a major focus for Hindu pilgrimage.  Using visual materials, Jack Hawley will ask what it is like to be there and participate.

2:30pm          Manpreet Kaur (Columbia), “Text as Preceptor: Guru Granth Sahib in Sikh belief and practice”

In the Sikh community, the sacred text of the Guru Granth Sahib is believed to be the living embodiment of the Supreme. After a brief historical overview of the development and organization of the community vis-a-vis this holy book, we'll leaf through the current ceremonies and practices of the community, personal and public, to examine the centrality of the sacred text in the community's ethos. In the process, we'll map some of this history as well as contemporary practice onto the geography of Northern India.

3:30pm Break

3:45pm Concurrent break-out Workshop sessions

Workshop One

Tom Lamont (Groton School) and Achla Eccles (Riverdale Country School)

“Rethinking How to Teach Modern Indian History in an American High School”

For decades in American high Schools the teaching of the history of India has been rare, or perhaps worse, characterized by stereotypes and simplistic narratives that have generally reflected Western, specifically British perspectives. This workshop, led by two experienced teachers of modern Indian history at the high school level, will offer newer ideas and approaches that reflect a more complex, nuanced, and richer narrative that represents more recent and emerging scholarship in modern Indian history. 

Workshop Two

Brad Nicholson (Peddie School)

“Creating and Implementing Trips to India for High School Students”

Trips to India can be transformative for American high school students, but many schools shy away from them based on fear, misinformation, or inexperience.  This workshop, conducted by an experienced leader of India trips and summer programs, will discuss the benefits and difficulties inherent in taking high school students to India.  A wide variety of successful models will be presented, with an emphasis on the logistics and risk management aspects of such a trip as well as ways to create trips that go beyond academic tourism.  We will also discuss strategies for integrating trips into the larger curriculum.

READING MATERIALS

Copies of the following books will be distributed at the workshop to all participants:

The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time of War.  Translated by Barbara Stoler Miller (1986)

The "Bhagavad Gita": A Biography.  Richard H. Davis (2014)

Sikhism.  Gurinder Singh Mann (2004)

Sources of Indian Traditions, Volume 1:  Beginnings to 1800.  Edited by Ainslie T. Embree (1988).

REGISTRATION

Participants must be K-12 teachers, two- or four-year college instructors or students enrolled in graduate education degree programs. If you would like to register for the workshop, or have questions, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]>. To register, please send an email which includes your name, school affiliation, level of students taught, and subjects taught. Student registrants should include their school and degree program, anticipated graduation date, and a very brief statement of career goals.

There is no registration fee to attend the workshop.  All books and materials will be provided to participants at no cost.

For additional information, please contact William Carrick at [email protected] or by phone at (212) 854-4565.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Achla Eccles has recently retired from Riverdale Country School where for 36 years she taught a range of courses from the two-year core course on World History for the ninth and tenth grades to electives for juniors and seniors on AP European history, Law and the US Constitution, Asian Religions, Modern China and more recently an elective on Modern India. She has presented at past conferences sponsored by Educators for Teaching India (EFTI), and she holds a BA degree in history from the University of Delhi, India, and a Masters in History from the University of Cambridge, UK.

Richard H. Davis is Professor of Religion; Director, Religion Program; and Director, Asian Studies Program at Bard College.  He earned his PhD at the University of Chicago, and taught at Yale University for ten years before joining Bard in 1997.  His publications include The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography (2014); A Priest's Guide for the Great Festival: Aghorasiva's Mahotsavavidhi (2009); Global India Circa 100 CE : South Asia in Early World History (2009); and the edited volume: Picturing the Nation: Iconographies of Modern India (2006). He has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Fulbright-Hays, Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

John Stratton Hawley is Professor in the Department of Religion at Barnard and Columbia and has served as director of the South Asia Institute.  He specializes in the devotional traditions of North India. He was educated at Amherst College, and earned his M.Div. at Union Theological Seminary and his PhD at Harvard University.  Hawley’s forthcoming book, A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement, examines one of the principal ways that Indians have told the story of their religious history.  Other publications include a forthcoming translation in the new Murty Classical Library of India of Harvard University Press, Sur's Ocean: Poems from the Early Tradition (2015); The Memory of Love: Surdas Sings to Krishna (2009); and the co-edited volume (with Vasudha Narayanan), The Life of Hinduism (2006).  Hawley has been a Guggenheim Felllow and was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Manpreet Kaur is a doctoral student in the Department of Religion at Columbia University.

Tom Lamont is chair of the History Department at Groton School where he teaches World History, American History, and senior elective courses on Modern Indian History, Modern Chinese History, and International Relations. He is a member of Educators for Teaching India (EFTI), and holds degrees in history from Harvard University and the University of Oxford, UK.

Rachel Fell McDermott is Professor in the Department of Religion at Barnard and Columbia and has served as Chair of the Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures Department at Barnard College. She received her B.A. from the Pennsylvania, an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School, and earned her Ph.D. at Harvard. Her research interests focus on Bengal and the Hindu-goddess-centered religious traditions of India.   Her recent publications include Revelry, Rivalry, and Longing for the Goddesses of Bengal: The Fortunes of Hindu Festivals (2011); Breaking Boundaries with the Goddess: New Directions in the Study of Saktism. Essays in Honor of Narendra Nath Bhattacharyya, edited with Cynthia Ann Humes (2009); Encountering Kali: In the Margins, At the Center, In the West, edited with Jeffrey Kripal (2003).  She is co-editor of Sources of Indian Tradition, Volume Two: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Third Edition, 2013), with Leonard Gordon, Ainslie Embree, Frances Pritchett, and Dennis Dalton.

Brad Nicholson is the Asian Studies Program Coordinator at Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey, where he teaches Modern Global History and senior elective courses in Modern India, Modern China, Asian Religions, and International Relations in Asia as well as a senior research course in Asian Studies.  Brad grew up spending his summers in India, where his father worked for Habitat for Humanity India.  He has created and implemented six successful trips to India and has spent five summers administering programs for high school students in China and India.  Brad has done similar presentations at the EFTI annual conference at Harvard as well as NJAIS and NAIS presentations on related topics.  He was the Max Weber Scholar in Sociology at Williams College and holds an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia.  He is a member of Educators For Teaching India (EFTI).

October 25, 2014
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM

10:00am - 1:00pm

A Talk by Philip K. Oldenburg (Columbia University)

Democracy in India: A Decade of Change

Since 2007, when Oldenburg's essay “India’s Democracy: Illusion or Reality?” appeared, India has had two parliamentary elections and countless elections to state legislatures and local bodies. It is finally emerging from the global economic crisis, but problems of public health, Hindu-Muslim and separatist violence, environmental degradation, and corruption – and many more -- persist. In what ways has India’s democracy been affected? And in particular, does the overwhelming electoral success of the new government of the Hindu Nationalist BJP, with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister, suggest a major shift?

Philip Oldenburg earned his PhD from the University of Chicago and has taught political science at Columbia since 1977.  He served as Director and Associate Director of the South Asia Institute, 1995-2002. His published scholarly work focuses mainly on Indian politics, particularly local government and elections.  He was editor or co-editor of ten volumes in The Asia Society’s India Briefing series. His most recent book is India, Pakistan, and Democracy: Solving the Puzzle of Divergent Paths (London & New York: Routledge, 2010). His current research and writing project has the working title of “The Indian Politician.”

A talk by S. Akbar Zaidi (Columbia University)

Pakistan's Identity and Its Relations with India

Pakistan emerged from a united colonial India in 1947, causing the partition of the Indian subcontinent, with the birth of two newly independent countries (later three, with East Pakistan becoming Bangladesh). Pakistan has struggled with its sense of identity, being South Asian but also moving towards the Middle East, yet its neighbours remain the same. India and Pakistan have fought four wars in the last 67 years, and have tried to restart and improve relations on numerous occasions. Can a militarised and militant Pakistan and a resurgent India, live in peace and bring prosperity to 1.3 billion people?

S. Akbar Zaidi has a joint appointment at the School of International and Public Affairs, and the Department of Middle East, South Asia, and African Studies at Columbia University.  Zaidi earned a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He taught at Karachi University for thirteen year, and was a visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University in 2004-05.  Apart from his interest in political economy, he has research interests in development, the social sciences, and history.  His publications include Military, Civil Society and Democratization in Pakistan (2011);  Political Economy and Development in Pakistan (2010); Issues in Pakistan's Economy (2006).

SCHEDULE

9:30am    Coffee, tea, bagels, and muffins

10:00am    "Democracy in India" by Philip K. Oldenburg

11:00am    Break

11:15am    "Pakistan's Identity with Relation to India" by S. Akbar Zaidi

12:30pm     Panel discussion with Profs. Oldenburg and Zaidi

READING MATERIALS

Participants will be asked to read the essay “India’s Democracy: Illusion or Reality?" by Philip Oldenburg (download a PDF copy here or request it to be sent by email attachment when you register). 

Copies of the following books will be distributed at the workshop to all participants:

India, Pakistan, and Democracy: Solving the Puzzle of Divergent Paths by Philip K. Oldenburg (Routledge, 2010).  Comparative analysis of the political systems of India and Pakistan with an historical overview of the two countries.

Issues in Pakistan's Economy  by S. Akbar Zaidi  (Oxford University Press, 2006).  A resource on South Asia's development, economic history and on  political economy with a diverse array of data, literature reviews, commentary and analysis.

REGISTRATION FOR FALL 2014 "Politics of India and Pakistan" SEMINAR

Participants must be K-12 teachers, two- or four-year college instructors or students enrolled in graduate education degree programs. Attendees may register for all four meetings or register for individual sessions. If you would like to register for the workshop, or have questions, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]>. To register, please send an email which includes your name, school affiliation, level of students taught, and subjects taught. Students should include their school and degree program, anticipated graduation date, and a very brief statement of career goals.

There is no registration fee to attend the workshop.  All books and materials will be provided to participants at no cost.

For additional information, please contact William Carrick at [email protected] or by phone at (212) 854-4565.

After School Professional Development programs are funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

April 9, 2014 - April 30, 2014
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

A talk by S. Akbar Zaidi (Columbia University)

Democracy, Islam and Dictatorship: The Many Pasts and Futures of Pakistan

Professor S. Akbar Zaidi has a joint appointment at the School of International and Public Affairs, and the Department of Middle East, South Asia, and African Studies at Columbia University.  Zaidi holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He taught at Karachi University for thirteen years, and was a visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University in 2004-05.  Apart from his interest in political economy, he has research interests in development, the social sciences, and history.  His publications include Military, Civil Society and Democratization in Pakistan (2011);  Political Economy and Development in Pakistan (2010); Issues in Pakistan's Economy (2006).

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

A Talk by Kanchan Chandra (New York University)

Democracy and Dysfunction in India

Kanchan Chandra is Professor in the Politics Department at New York University.  She previously taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences at Stanford.  She earned her PhD from Harvard University, and subsequently was awarded grants from the Carnegie and Guggenheim Foundations, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the National Science Foundation.  Her research interests include Comparative Ethnic Politics, Democratic Theory, Political Parties and Elections, Violence, and Comparative Research Methods.  Her publications include Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics (2012) and Why Ethnic Parties Succeed : Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India (2004).

Monday, April 21, 2014

A talk by Jillian Schwedler (Hunter College, CUNY)

The Political Geography of Protests in the Arab World

Jillian Schwedler is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center.  She received her PhD from New York University, and has taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the University of Maryland at College Park.  Her current academic interests include Comparative politics, Protest and policing, Social movements and contentious politics, Political geography, the Middle East, Political Islam.  She has conducted field research in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen, and has received grants from the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright Foundation, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and the American Institute for Yemeni Studies.  Schwedler’s publications include the monograph Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen (2006) and the co-edited volume Policing and Prisons in the Middle East: Formations of Coercion (2010).

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

A talk by Golbarg Bashi

Gender, Political and Social movements in Iran

Golbarg Bashi has taught Iranian and Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University.  She earned Ph.D. in Middle East Studies from Columbia University.  Born in Iran, she grew up in Sweden, and was educated in Britain and the United States.  Her research interests include political art and music in Iran, theories and practices of human rights in Iran and the Muslim world, modern Iranian literary history, women and gender in fundamentalist religious communities and women's rights movements in a global comparative context.

READING MATERIALS

Readings and other materials for individual workshops will be distributed in-person and by email attachment.  The following recently published books will be distributed to all registrants, at no cost:

Dispatches from the Arab Spring: Understanding the New Middle East.  Edited by Paul Amar and Vijay Prashad.  University of Minnesota Press, September 2013. 

Sources of Indian Tradition, Volume Two.  Third edition.  Edited by Rachel Fell McDermott.  University of Columbia Press, April 2014.

REGISTRATION FOR SPRING 2014 SEMINARS

Participants must be K-12 teachers, two-year college instructors or students enrolled in graduate education degree programs. Attendees may register for all four meetings or register for individual sessions. If you would like to register for the workshops, or have questions, please contact William Carrick at [email protected] or at (212) 854-4565. To register, please include your name, school affiliation, level of students taught, and subjects taught. Students should include their school and degree program, anticipated graduation date, and a very brief statement of career goals.

There is no registration fee to attend the workshop.  All books and materials will be provided to participants at no cost.

For additional information, please contact William Carrick at [email protected] or by phone at (212) 854-4565.

After School Professional Development programs are funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

April 9, 2011 - April 30, 2011
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM

Photos above, left to right: Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Mohammad Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, and Benazir Bhutto.

A Short History of Pakistan

by S. Akbar Zaidi

"A Short History of Pakistan" was recorded in January-February 2011. It features five lectures by Visiting Professor S. Akbar Zaidi. Each lecture is about two hours long, and includes some discussion with the teacher-participants. Some of the materials distributed during the course are appended to the respective lectures, where available. (Additional materials may be posted at a later date, due to pending permissions).

Professor S. Akbar Zaidi has a joint appointment at the School of International and Public Affairs, and the Department of Middle East, South Asia, and African Studies at Columbia University.  Zaidi holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He taught at Karachi University for thirteen years, and was a visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University in 2004-05.  He is one of Pakistan's most respected political economists.  Apart from his interest in political economy, he has research interests in development, the social sciences, and history.  His most recent of twelve books is Political Economy and Development in Pakistan, published in 2010. His other books include The New Development Paradigm: Papers on Institutions, NGOs, Gender and Local Government (1999), and Issues in Pakistan's Economy (2005).

Lecture one: Muslim Separatism and the idea of Pakistan
     + Listen to a Podcast of Part 1
     + Listen to a Podcast of Part 2

Materials referred to in Lecture One:

Partition and Refugee movements

1909 British Map of Prevailing Religions of India

1909 British Map of Muslim percent of population of India

Article: South Asia? West Asia? Pakistan: Location, Identity by S. Akbar Zaidi

Lecture two: Independence and the Two Partitions (1947 and 1971)
     + Listen to a Podcast of Part 1
     + Listen to a Podcast of Part 2
Timeline of events in the history of Pakistan to 1971

Lecture three: Politics, Democracy, and the Military
     + Listen to a Podcast of Part 1
     + Listen to a Podcast of Part 2

Article:
State, Miltary and Social Transition: Improbable Future of Democracy in Pakistan by S. Akbar Zaidi

Lecture four: Conflicts within and around Pakistan
     + Listen to a Podcast

Lecture five: Pakistan today and tomorrow
     + Listen to a Podcast
Timeline charting key Political and Economic Events in Pakistan's history & Patterns of Civilian and Military Rule, 1947-2009
Article: Pakistan among top 10 in terms of Human Development Improvement
Article: Social and Structural Transformations in Pakistan by S. Akbar Zaidi

Suggested readings:

Nawaz, Shuja. Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2008.

Sayeed, Khalid B. and George Cunningham. Pakistan- the Formative Phase 1857--1948. Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, New York, 1991. Pages 3-12.

Talbot, Ian. "Picking Up the Pieces, Pakistan 1947-49." Pakistan: A Modern History. Second edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Pages 95-147.

Waseem, Mohammad. "Civil-Military Relations in Pakistan." In Pakistan in Regional and Global Politic. Rajshree Jetty, editor. New Delhi: Routledge, 2009. Pages 181-211.

Zaidi, S. Akbar. Issues in Pakistan's Economy. Second Edition. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Ziring, Lawrence. "The Agony of Partition." Pakistan in the Twentieth Century: A Political History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Non-Pakistan reading mentioned in Lecture Three (on democracy in the Middle East):

Diamond, Larry. "Why are there no Arab Democracies? Journal of Democracy. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Volume 21, Number 1, January 2010.

For additional information or comments, please contact William Carrick at [email protected].