Asia Week – Celebrating the Vibrant Tapestry of Asia

Between 11 and 15 September, the Asian Dynamics Initiative invites you to dive into a realm of intellectual exploration and cultural enlightenment bridging the Global North and South during Asia Week.

Immerse yourself in an engaging symposium of ideas, book launches, documentary films, stimulating debates, and community gatherings that promise to unravel the intricate dynamics shaping the Asian continent. With all events grounded in evidence-based research, Asia Week is your gateway to an in-depth understanding of Asia's past, present, and future.

The events celebrate the unveiling of new knowledge about the most populous continent on our planet. Asia Week is your bridge between the Global North and South, and your gateway to an in-depth understanding of Asia's past, present, and future.

We look forward to welcoming you on this scholarly expedition, delving into the heart of Asia during a week of events at the University of Copenhagen. Please note that all Asia Week events are free of charge.

Asia Week programme

Monday 11 September

Time Event
13:00-14:00

Lahore Cinema

Book Launch with author Ifitkhar Dadi / Festsalen

Register for Lahore Cinema.

 

Commercial cinema has been among the most powerful vectors of social and aesthetic modernization in South Asia. So argues Iftikhar Dadi in his provocative examination of cinema produced between 1956 and 1969—the long sixties—in Lahore, Pakistan, following the 1947 Partition of South Asia.

These films drew freely from Bengali performance traditions, Hindu mythology, Parsi theater, Sufi conceptions of the self, Urdu lyric poetry, and Hollywood musicals, bringing these traditions into dialogue with melodrama and neorealism. Examining this layered context offers insights into a period of rapid modernization and into cultural affiliation in the South Asian present, when frameworks of multiplicity and plurality are in jeopardy.

 

 

 

14:30-16:30

Asia in Copenhagen

Celebration of Asia at the University of Copenhagen / Room 15A.0.13

Register for Asia in Copenhagen.

 

Welcome to an engaging and informative introduction to the wealth of possibilities awaiting you at the University of Copenhagen. We invite you to hear from several of the Asian studies alumni - their experiences of UCPH, and how their career path has flourished since being here.

You will also hear from current students who will come with good tips and insights into engaging with Asia both within and outside of the university walls, and how this has enriched their academic and university experience.

Finally, we will share some of the other projects on Asia that are happening here at UCPH which you can get involved in. 

 

 

 

16:30-18:00

Reception / Festsalen

We'll round off the day with a drinks and snacks reception! Unwind and connect in an atmosphere set for mingling, networking, and making new connections. Cheers to a delightful evening celebrating Asia and new beginnings!

 

Tuesday 12 September

Time Event
9:00-10:30 

Postcolonial Futures for Disaster Risk Reduction in South Asia

Online seminar

Register for Postcolonial Fututes.

 

This discussion is guided by a special issue of southasiadisasters.net produced by the speakers, which aims to explore postcolonial futures for disaster risk reduction in South Asia. It will offer pathways towards thinking of disaster risk and how to enhance people’s everyday life and livelihoods away from the dogma of Western concepts, frameworks, methodologies and tools.

Case studies from around the region will showcase how we can reinterpret harm and hardship beyond the sole concepts of hazard, vulnerability, resilience, etc. These case studies will further document how people deal with suffering throughout their lives. They will also provide examples of alternative approaches to alleviate harm and hardship that are genuinely grounded in local understanding of the world.

 

 

12:00-15:00

Bad Women of China

Documentary film screening and director talk with He Xiaopei / Cinemateket, CPH City

Register for Bad Women of China.

In what began as an attempt at reconciling with her mother through her daughter, He Xiaopei’s first feature length film takes us form the 1920-2020s through the lives, desires, and willpower of her mother, herself, and her daughter as they experience political and social revolution. Breaking all the rules and desperate for a life to call one’s own, each woman passes to the next the most tender lover and unintentional trauma.

 

 

Wednesday 13 September

Time Event
10:00-12:00

Primary Sources of South Asian Studies

Introducing the Indic manuscript collection / Building 10, 4th floor, room 10.4.68.

Limited seats / Registration required. Register for Primary Sources of South Asian Studies.

 

The Kenneth G. Zysk Indological Manuscript Collection at ToRS invites the public into a world of unique and rarely seen primary sources invoking more than 3000 years of intellectual history in South Asia. The manuscripts were collected from Brahmin families in North India and date from the 16th century onwards.

They are written in Sanskrit and Hindi and cover a wide range of genres from law, philosophy, and science to tantra, yoga, and poetry. They also include several maps, charts, and diagrams together with numerous performative ritual texts of great importance for our understanding of everyday religious practices.

The event will begin with a brief presentation of the collection and its inherent research potential. It will continue with a guided tour through a small exhibition of select manuscripts. Participants will learn about the scribes who produced the manuscripts and the conventions they followed in presenting them to the reader.

The collection website can be visited at https://ccrs.ku.dk/research/centres-and-projects/zysk

 

13:00-14:30

Asia Inside Out

Photographic Exhibition and Talk / Room 10.3.28

Register for Asia Inside Out.

 

What does life in the highlands of Central Asia look like today? How do the people of this region express their sense of identity, continuity and belonging in the face of historical, cultural and economic changes? How can we, as Western audiences, gain a deeper understanding of their living history and reality?

These are some of the questions that the group exhibition ASIA Inside Out aims to explore through the eyes of two local documentary photographers, Guliza Kyzy Urustambek and Danil Usmanov, who focus on capturing life in the remote, mountainous regions of Central Asia. The exhibition is a collaboration between IMMART, Asian Dynamics Initiative, and curators Cila Brosius and Abel Alazo.

 

14:45-17:00

Shadowlands

Documentary film screening and director talk with Nida Kirmani / Festsalen

Register for Shadowlands.

 

One of the oldest settlements in Karachi, Lyari has been the site on-going violence between political parties, criminal gangs and law enforcement agencies since the early 2000s. For this reason, Lyari, has been labeled by law enforcement agencies and the media as one of several ‘no-go areas’ in the city. However, residents of Lyari tell a different story, referring to this area as ‘Karachi ki maan’ or the mother of Karachi. For Lyari’s residents, their locality has continuously shifted from being a space of protection against the hostile social and political environment of the city to a space of terror at the hands of local criminal gangs and law enforcement agencies.

While the conflict has gradually subsided since 2013, the state-led Operation came with its own violence with many residents losing family members to extrajudicial killings (‘encounters’). Many others are still in prison for alleged involvement in the gangs. Furthermore, the roots of the conflict—poverty, drugs, and the conflict between political parties—remain factors that shape the area. Hence, while Lyari may officially be at ‘peace’, residents are aware the violent conflict may erupt at any time in the future.

This documentary follows two residents of Lyari, both of whom have lost family members to police encounters. Through telling their stories, the documentary sheds light on the on-going ramifications of violence and to question whether peace has truly been achieved for the people of Lyari.

 

17:00-19:00

Asian Dynamics Initiative Community Dinner

Community Dinner / Folkekøkken, Ground Floor, Building 13A, Karen Blixens Plads 8

Limited seats / Registration required. Register for the community dinner.

Join us for an unforgettable culinary journey. Our menu is infused with vibrant Asian flavors, promising a delightful experience for your taste buds. Join colleagues and fellow students for a delicious warm dish paired with fragrant rice or noodles, a selection of cold and warm salad creations accompanied by an array of chutneys, dressings, and chili toppings.

We look forward to dining together with you!

 

 

Thursday 14 September

Time Event
9:00-17:00

NORTH SOUTH Symposium

Nonalignment and New Alignments in the Post-Global World.

Two-day International Symposium / Festsalen.

Register for Symposium, day 1.

 

The post-War liberal consensus is said to have been eroding in the past few years. The pandemic followed by the war in Ukraine made visible new and old fault lines that underpinned growing uncertainty in the global order. Consider the looming specter of a new Cold War and the attendant return of the idea of nonalignment as well as the global south, a turn that heralded the undoing of late twentieth-century globalization. Once imagined as a borderless market for exchange and extraction, a vast inexhaustible commodity, the world now surfaces a range of boundaries and barriers that constrain the millennial march of globalization. It is not just the ongoing reconfiguration of supply chains, decoupling of financial markets, or the search for ever-new sources of energy independence, but also the re-forging of old ideas and alliances that are drawing new frontiers in the global order. Yet, for all resemblances, the twenty-first-century geopolitics and geoeconomics ruptures do not neatly overlap the bipolarity that shaped the mid-twentieth-century. Instead, in this renewed hedging of bets, the nations in the global south and global north alike compete for scarce resources and subscribe to multiple partnerships and affinities in an array of spheres of interest. Put simply, the established certainties of the global north-south or even south-south dynamics, as well as longstanding ideological allegiances, appear to be overshadowed by the pragmatic, hyperrealist pursuit of national interests in a multipolar world. The question then is: what forms of nonalignment or new alignments might be emerging? What does it even mean to be nonaligned or aligned in the current geopolitics and geoeconomics of multiple allegiances and partnerships?

This symposium is an invitation to revisit the old debates and histories – of ideas, conflicts, actors and alliances – that have long framed our understanding of the north-south dynamics. The focus is on the current speculative moment that simultaneously surfaces glimpses of the past and possible visions of the future: from nonalignment to many new alignments which are being forged in the present. The idea is not just to historicize the present but to move away from teleological accounts that tend to overlook manifold material and abstract shifts underway both in the South as well as the North.

 

 

Morning session

Time Activity
08:45–09:15 Arrival & Registration
09:15–09:30  Introduction by Ravinder Kaur
09:30–11:00

Worlds of Non-alignment I

Chair: Rasmus Elling, University of Copenhagen

Lessons from the twentieth-century India’s non-aligned politics
Swapna Kona Nayudu, Yale-NUS College, Singapore (online)

Asia and the Global South
C Raja Mohan, Asia Society Policy Institute

11:00-11:15 Break
11:15-12:45
Ideas of the Global South

Chair: Peter Marcus Kristensen, University of Copenhagen

Is Global South an Empty Signifier?
Vineet Thakur, Leiden University, Netherlands

Hijacking Third-Worldism: Notes Towards a Critical Approach
Christopher J. Lee, The Africa Institute, UAE

12:45–14:00 Lunch

Afternoon session

14:00–16:15
The Long Twentieth Century

Chair: Thomas Blom Hansen, Stanford University/University of Copenhagen

Bengal, 1905, and the Making of the International System
Pallavi Raghavan, Ashoka University

New India and Emergent Geopolitical Mobilizations
Khusdeep Kaur Malhotra, Temple University

The Non-aligned movement: A historical perspective
Jürgen Dinkel, University of Duisburg-Essen

16:15–16:30 Break
16:30–18:00
New Geographies of Power I

Chair: Rohan Mukherjee, London School of Economics

Open Embrace: India-US Ties in a Divided World
Varghese K George, The Hindu

Thinking a post-imperial world today
Raphaëlle Khan, City University of New York (CUNY) and Harvard Asia Center

 

Friday 15 September

Time Event
9:00-17:00

NORTH SOUTH Symposium

Nonalignment and New Alignments in the Post-Global World

Two-day International Symposium / Festsalen.

Register for Symposium, day 2.

 

The post-War liberal consensus is said to have been eroding in the past few years. The pandemic followed by the war in Ukraine made visible new and old fault lines that underpinned growing uncertainty in the global order. Consider the looming specter of a new Cold War and the attendant return of the idea of nonalignment as well as the global south, a turn that heralded the undoing of late twentieth-century globalization. Once imagined as a borderless market for exchange and extraction, a vast inexhaustible commodity, the world now surfaces a range of boundaries and barriers that constrain the millennial march of globalization. It is not just the ongoing reconfiguration of supply chains, decoupling of financial markets, or the search for ever-new sources of energy independence, but also the re-forging of old ideas and alliances that are drawing new frontiers in the global order. Yet, for all resemblances, the twenty-first-century geopolitics and geoeconomics ruptures do not neatly overlap the bipolarity that shaped the mid-twentieth-century. Instead, in this renewed hedging of bets, the nations in the global south and global north alike compete for scarce resources and subscribe to multiple partnerships and affinities in an array of spheres of interest. Put simply, the established certainties of the global north-south or even south-south dynamics, as well as longstanding ideological allegiances, appear to be overshadowed by the pragmatic, hyperrealist pursuit of national interests in a multipolar world. The question then is: what forms of nonalignment or new alignments might be emerging? What does it even mean to be nonaligned or aligned in the current geopolitics and geoeconomics of multiple allegiances and partnerships?

This symposium is an invitation to revisit the old debates and histories – of ideas, conflicts, actors and alliances – that have long framed our understanding of the north-south dynamics. The focus is on the current speculative moment that simultaneously surfaces glimpses of the past and possible visions of the future: from nonalignment to many new alignments which are being forged in the present. The idea is not just to historicize the present but to move away from teleological accounts that tend to overlook manifold material and abstract shifts underway both in the South as well as the North.

 

 

Morning session

Time Activity
09:30-11:00
Worlds of Non-alignment II

Chair: Vineet Thakur, Leiden University, Netherlands

Non-aligned Netherworld: “Internal Security” and Other Military agendas in Africa-Asia
networks
Shobana Shankar, Stony Brook University

Nonalignment: the tense alliance between India and the ANC
Thomas Blom Hansen, Stanford University/University of Copenhagen

11:00-11:15 Break
11:15-12:45
New Geographies of Power II

Chair: Anders Wivel, University of Copenhagen

‘New India’ and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: Non-Alignment as an Aspiration to Power
Kate Sullivan de Estrada, University of Oxford

International Order and its Discontents
Rohan Mukherjee, London School of Economics

12:45-14:00 Lunch

Afternoon session

14.00-15:30
Small States in an Uncertain World

Ravinder Kaur, University of Copenhagen
Anders Wivel, University of Copenhagen
Rasmus Mariager, University of Copenhagen

15:30-16:00 Plenary wrap up

              

 

17:00

Farewell & Thank You for Celebrating Asia Week!