R. Benedito Ferrão is part of the “Story as Salve: Arab America Writes its Own Healing” workshop at MOVE 2017 (DIWAN 7). Held at the Arab American National Museum on Saturday, 18 November, 2017, the workshop will “create a space in which participants come together to learn creative ways in which to articulate and negotiate the traumatic.”
More information here: http://www.diwanart.org/schedule/
Kaustubh Naik will make a presentation titled ‘‘To merge or not to merge’ – that and other questions’ at the weekly Research Scholars colloquium at the Delhi School of Economics, New Delhi.
Time: Friday 27th October 2017 at 11 am
Venue: Ground Floor Classroom, Dept of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics.
Abstract
Regions can be understood not merely as geographical terrains contained in arbitrary boundaries but also as modern imagined communities. In a multitude of such imaginations, it is rather imperative that one underscores the locus of these imaginations, especially to assess which imaginations get consolidated and sustained and which imaginations are written off in the due course of history. The discursive production of post-colonial Indian national identity has often written off the many attachments to culture, history, ethnicity and sovereignty that did not materialize in its current federal arrangement. In this presentation, Kaustubh will share some of his early reflections on the study of the political movement that aimed to territorially merge the former Portuguese territory of Goa with the newly formed Indian state of Maharashtra and invite us to think about the conditions influencing the regional political imaginations in the post-colonial Indian nation state, as well as the centrality of caste to these imaginations.
R. Benedito Ferrão will present “Twenty-Five Years after Dominic D’souza: Of (De)Coloniality and (Un)Queer Reclamations” at the UW-Madison Annual Conference on South Asia’s Feminist Pre-Conference: Gender, Sexuality, and Occupation, on 26 October, 2017.
Abstract:
On this, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Dominic D’souza’s death, and in light of the global shift away from AIDS-activism and towards marriage equality as the defining factor of current gay identity, this presentation will consider how the reclamation of D’souza as a Goan figure may renew the possibility of decolonial queer activism in South Asia.
More information here: http://southasiaconference.
Dale Luis Menezes will present a paper titled, “Reginald Fernandes and Concanim ‘Romans’ in the Literary History of Goa” at the III Congresso Internacional do LIA – Laboratório de Interlocuções com a Ásia, on 19 October, 2017 at Casa de Portugal, São Paulo, Brazil. This presentation will be part of the Pensando Goa project, which aims to produce a literary history of Goa.
Reginald Fernandes’ writing career spans almost 40 years. This period that stretched around c 1955-1992, Fernandes wrote more than 120 novels or what in Concanim came to be known as ‘romans’ or ‘romaxeo’ (pl.). The Concanim ‘romans’ is not adequately studied, neither in the history of Konknni literature nor in the history of Goan literature. Fernandes’ writings give the impression of pulp on first glance: they were printed on cheap paper, the books were pocket-sized, the plots were formulaic and revolved around love stories, crimes, and magic realism, and the language used had a touch of the dramatic in it. Perhaps this is the reason why dominant canons of Konkani and Goan literature never seriously considered the writings of Fernandes – or indeed other writers in the genre of ‘romans’ – as legitimately constituting literature.
Fernandes’ writings not only talk about Goa, but also other places like Africa – often set in a magic realism-esque manner. The language used in Fernandes’ novels is infused with Portuguese or Portuguese-inflected words, and as such it points to larger connections across linguistic and geographical boundaries. Fernandes was inspired by pulp fiction in English – both in English pulp writings and films—which also suggests that Goan literature through the Concanim ‘romans’ had wider connections with other literary cultures. This study proposes to discuss the life and career of Fernandes and locate him in the historical context in which he produced his oeuvre.
Courtesy: Don’t Trade Our Lives Away.
At the outset, I would like to remind you, that we cannot talk of a Comprehensive Economic Partnership without it being inclusive. In the spirit of substantive equality which India’s Constitution makers have envisioned with such foresight, and which the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) also emphasises, to be inclusive, both the process and the result must promote equality, promote equal democratic rights, must result in more equitable access to resources, more sustainable income generating opportunities and advance Development Justice for those who are most marginalised in each of these participating countries, and this includes women with their intersecting identities of caste, class, minority, and other axis of marginalisation. India is currently the second most unequal country in the world in terms of the distribution of wealth and gender inequality has been deepening in our country being one of the only countries where the division of labour and income gap is widening. This Agreement will accelerate further these inequalities. (more…)
R. Benedito Ferrão will present a paper titled ‘With this Sea-Port I thee Wed: Of Royal Dowries and Self-Makingin Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children‘ at the Oceans and Shores: Heritage, People, and Environments conference – III CHAM International conference, FCSH/Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 12-15 July, 2017.
Ferrão’s paper will examine how Rushdie’s novel, Midnight’s Children, uses the early modern history of sea-ports and maritime trade to underscore the postcolonial location of characters and their Lusophonic connections as subaltern legacies subsumed in post-British India.
In having Mary Pereira/Braganza be Goan, Midnight’s Children brings into focus the significant utility of his character’s native land in the European imperial history of South Asia. Mary Pereira evokes the figure of Goa as one of the earliest colonies and then the last foreign dominion (1510-1961) in what was to become modern day India. In adopting the Braganza moniker, the character recalls an important historical moment in the making of coloniality. The 1662 marriage of Catherine of Braganza to Charles II was orchestrated to secure the relationship between two colonial powers. Through the alliance, England received the port city of Bombay as dowry.
Further, in renaming herself after the Portuguese infanta, Mary Pereira also evokes that other Catherine. On 25 November, 1510, Afonso de Albuquerque took the port of Goa. It was the feast day of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and the Portuguese conqueror believed she had overseen his defeat of the Muslim ruler of the enclave. This conquestchanged the course of commercial relations between Europe and Asia, displacing Middle Eastern trade hegemonies. Simultaneously, the site where Saint Catherine discovered her faith – North Africa – doubly pagan and quintessentially “other” in the later Occidental imagination is also the continental location from which sprung the Moors: Muslims who once ruled over Iberia.
By centring on the iconic naming and renaming of Mary Pereira in Midnight’s Children, the paper argues that the novel uses the history of the ports of Goa and Bombay to challenge the Anglo-centrism of postcolonial thought in relation to India, especially by highlighting maritime commerce.
More information about the conference here.
Vishvesh Kandolkar and Pithamber Polsani will present a paper titled ‘The Ruination of the Inconvenient: Eroding Goa’s Intangible Heritage’ at the conference on Preserving Transcultural Heritage: Your Way or My Way, to be held at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon, from 5-8 July, 2017.
In this paper, the authors argue that the architecture of monuments is not only emblematic of the history of a place, but also the lived experience of its people. Subsequent to Goa’s annexation by India, the State’s political dispensation has continued to obscure the history of the Portuguese empire in Goa while conveniently using the heritage of the Estado period in promotion of its tourism industry. The State’s attitude to heritage conservation has been biased towards addressing only the tangible components of heritage, such as architecture, while sidelining such intangible heritage as minoritised people who also require protection.
Amita Kanekar will present a paper titled ‘The Politics of Renovation: The Disappearing Architecture of Goa’s Old Brahmanical Temples’ at the conference on Preserving Transcultural Heritage: Your Way or My Way, to be held at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon, from 5-8 July, 2017.
Kanekar’s paper will look at the unique architecture of Goa’s old Brahmanical shrines that is under threat today, and one of the reasons seems to be a perception that it is not Hindu enough. Goa’s centuries-long Islamicate and Iberian connections have left behind a heterogeneous culture in many aspects, including architecture. The many Brahmanical temples built from the seventeenth century onwards are examples of this, their hybrid forms belonging as much to the Islamicate world and the European Renaissance as to local building traditions. But, while these temples still stand today and attract increasing numbers of worshippers, their original architecture is disappearing, to be replaced by forms and elements from outside Goa. This paper examines the attempts to erase these unique forms, and the relation of this to the social, political, and legal context.
R. Benedito Ferrão will present a paper titled ‘A Garden Overgrown: Panjim’s Garcia da Orta Park and the Remaking of Eco-Cultural Legacies’ at the conference on Preserving Transcultural Heritage: Your Way or My Way, to be held at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon, from 5-8 July, 2017.
Ferrão’s paper will dwell on Garcia da Orta’s text Colóquios dos Simples e Drogas e Cousas Medicinias da Índia (1563) which catalogues regional plant-life and da Orta’s legacy in contemporary Goa. Despite da Orta’s life’s work, his Catholicism appears to be an issue for the State. In seeking to orchestrate other legacies for Goa, local governmental machinations have been imbued with India’s right-wing politics in the quest for a Hindu historical consciousness for the once Portuguese region. For example, in 2012 the State sought to situate an architectural monument at this park to commemorate the service of seventeenth century Saraswat Brahmin physicians who had been involved in compiling another botanical text – the Hortus Malabaricus (1678-1693). Whether these botanists may have actually been Goan seems irrelevant, for their caste lineages evoke those of Goa’s contemporary political elite, signaling the Brahmanical Hindu hegemony of the Indian nation-state.
Image credit: Memórias da India PortuguesaThe lecture will be a part of the South Asia Seminar Series, more information can be found here.