Gender communication is political commitment to diversity; gender communication hasaesthetic dimension.
There has been a rapid increase in number of women in the workplace as entrepreneurs, managers, bankers, and computer experts but still the ‘glass ceiling’ continues. People’s beliefs and attitudes as well as global policies on communication have urged various actors to provide support to women through information and communication technology (ICT) for international networking and sharing of information, and analysis of ways where communication policies, telecommunications and ICTs impact the development of women.
There still are millions of women who have minimum articulation in community discourse and thus the speech circuit is seldom complete. This conference seeks to highlight the nature and impact of gender communication and development from frontline corporate world to singing voices.
SAFAR is organizing a day-long conference on Gender, Communication, and Development. A conference on this particular theme is a useful resource for exploring the complex interactions of gender epistemologies, subjectivities, and sexualities. The discussions will benefit by understanding how communication and development are shaped, reflected, and expressed in terms with interpersonal, organizational, rhetorical, and media environments.
The speakers are from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, UAE, and USA.
Indigenous Knowledge and Nomadic wisdom: Discourses in the Disciplines of
Archeology, Anthropology, and Postcolonialism
Preamble
Walter Mignolo has termed decolonization as ‘epistemic reconstitution’. The reconstitution of the processes of producing, archiving, and disseminating knowledge has come forward as an urgency. Nonetheless, there have been several attempts by scholars from the Global South towards this end while, on the other hand, some from the North have also been engaging with the questions of such reconstitution. The moot issue here is the question of knowledge.
Knowledge has indigenous/aboriginal roots. Acknowledgment of the contributions of Tharus (Nepal), Santhals (India), and Māori (New Zealand) to Himba (Namibia) makes humanities scholarship richer, humbler, and epistemologically sincere. For instance, imagine the humanities research that is open for the engagement of ways the tantric culture of goddess art conceptualizes wisdom and compassion in the site of sexuality; or how the Magahi art in Southern Nepal communicates ecological awareness; and the power of songs that troubadours of Bangladesh sing cut across anthropomorphic world views.
Knowledge travels decentering the spatiotemporal boundaries and questioning the origin and authority of knowledge. The pre-historic humans were neither bloodthirsty apes, nor Hobbes’s brutish beasts or Rousseau’s noble savages, propose Graeber & Wengrow[1]. There was nothing like a sudden creative boom or the Upper Paleolithic revolution forty-five thousand years ago which propelled humans to cultural grandeur, they write. Various forms of knowledge can be traced millions of years back.
What is the validity behind the Hebraic concept of the origin of civilization, the Vedic origin of the universe, or more recently, the European Enlightenment as the harbinger of reason and progress? Knowledge has travelled in space and time disavowing any idea about the origin and authority of civilization within specific frames like Hinduism or Judaism, Modernism, and Eurocentrism.
We may try to learn how hunter-gatherers and foragers were societies with a sense of freedom and social organization. We may understand how Europe learned about reason and democracy from the Native Americans. We can also explore that the practice of multiculturalism and secularism are pervasive in the vernacular Buddhist, Islamic and many other cultures. At this juncture, for those of us who have been trying to find newer ways to do humanities (or post-humanities) in academia, it becomes imperative to be mindful of the attempts made by accomplished interlocutors.
The purpose of the seminar-workshop is to discourse on indigenous knowledge and how knowledge has always been nomadic from millions of years ago to the present. We will converse these issues with leading thinkers within the domains and interface of archeology, anthropology, and postcolonialism.
[1] See Primary Reading list. The Dawn of Everything is one of the major books for the seminar-workshop deliberations.
Asian Studies III was held on March 27-28, 2022 at Marsyandi Hotel Kathmandu in collaboration with CASSA and Ambition College, Kathmandu. Prof. Arun Gupto (Nepal) is working on an anthology with Dr. Lora Gonzales (USA). Interested writers can submit their abstracts within August, 2022 to Prof. Gupto (orungupto@gmail.com)
The conference focused on community studies and environmental studies by covering the following areas:
Community: Gender, City and Village
Environment: Society and Nature
Interface of Community and Environment: Art, Religion, Ethnicity, Law
SAFAR & CASSA present Comparative South Asian Studies Lecture series. Lecture-4 Prof. Arun Gupto, PhD on “Myths of Catabiosis: Aging Lakshmana, Aging Perseus”. Date: 18th July 2020, Saturday Time: 10.00-11.00AM (NPT)
4th July, 2020
SAFAR & CASSA present Comparative South Asian Studies Lecture series. Lecture-3 Panelists: Dr. Barsha Moktan Rayamajhi and Ms. Sujana Rajkarnikar on “Work-Life Balance: A Challenge for South Asian Women”. Date: 4th July 2020, Saturday Time: 9.00-10.00AM (NPT)
17th June, 2020
SAFAR & CASSA present Comparative South Asian Studies Lecture series. Lecture-2 Dr. Diksha Dhar, Asst. Professor-English on When Raja Goes to School and Rani Helps in the Kitchen: Exploring the Limits of Gender Representation in English Curriculum Date: 20th June 2020, Saturday Time: 10.00-11.00AM (NPT)
4th June 2020
SAFAR & CASSA present Comparative South Asian Studies Lecture series. Prof. Sangita Rayamajhi on Violence, Dignity and Honor Date: 6th June 2020, Saturday Time: 10.00-11.30AM (NPT)
SAFAR in collaboration with Premier University, Chittagong, Bangladesh has organized two events in Oct, 2019 at Premier University premises.
Digital Humanities Workshop and Nepal-Bangladesh Memory Studies workshop
WE FEED ON OUR PAST BUT HOW DO WE DO IT?
River Stage II, Friday, August, 3, 2018
Part of documentary “Four Gray Walls, Four Gray Towers”
Conceptualized by Arun Gupto
River Stage is an InterArt performance, a submission to the rivers in the cities when almost nothing is left but the arts to offer!Abhi Subedi and Leonard Schwartz read “Words, Mirrors, and Words,” a collection from their works! Salil Subedi’s musical composition and performance connects the river with the minds of the poets.
EVENTS
Asian Studies Conference IV
Gender, Communication and Development
Date: April, 22, 2023
Venue: Hotel Marshyangdi
Preamble
Gender communication is political commitment to diversity; gender communication has aesthetic dimension.
There has been a rapid increase in number of women in the workplace as entrepreneurs, managers, bankers, and computer experts but still the ‘glass ceiling’ continues. People’s beliefs and attitudes as well as global policies on communication have urged various actors to provide support to women through information and communication technology (ICT) for international networking and sharing of information, and analysis of ways where communication policies, telecommunications and ICTs impact the development of women.
There still are millions of women who have minimum articulation in community discourse and thus the speech circuit is seldom complete. This conference seeks to highlight the nature and impact of gender communication and development from frontline corporate world to singing voices.
SAFAR is organizing a day-long conference on Gender, Communication, and Development. A conference on this particular theme is a useful resource for exploring the complex interactions of gender epistemologies, subjectivities, and sexualities. The discussions will benefit by understanding how communication and development are shaped, reflected, and expressed in terms with interpersonal, organizational, rhetorical, and media environments.
The speakers are from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, UAE, and USA.
***********************************************************************************************************
IACER-SAFAR SEMINAR-WORKSHOP
June-July, 2024
Indigenous Knowledge and Nomadic wisdom: Discourses in the Disciplines of
Archeology, Anthropology, and Postcolonialism
Preamble
Walter Mignolo has termed decolonization as ‘epistemic reconstitution’. The reconstitution of the processes of producing, archiving, and disseminating knowledge has come forward as an urgency. Nonetheless, there have been several attempts by scholars from the Global South towards this end while, on the other hand, some from the North have also been engaging with the questions of such reconstitution. The moot issue here is the question of knowledge.
Knowledge has indigenous/aboriginal roots. Acknowledgment of the contributions of Tharus (Nepal), Santhals (India), and Māori (New Zealand) to Himba (Namibia) makes humanities scholarship richer, humbler, and epistemologically sincere. For instance, imagine the humanities research that is open for the engagement of ways the tantric culture of goddess art conceptualizes wisdom and compassion in the site of sexuality; or how the Magahi art in Southern Nepal communicates ecological awareness; and the power of songs that troubadours of Bangladesh sing cut across anthropomorphic world views.
Knowledge travels decentering the spatiotemporal boundaries and questioning the origin and authority of knowledge. The pre-historic humans were neither bloodthirsty apes, nor Hobbes’s brutish beasts or Rousseau’s noble savages, propose Graeber & Wengrow[1]. There was nothing like a sudden creative boom or the Upper Paleolithic revolution forty-five thousand years ago which propelled humans to cultural grandeur, they write. Various forms of knowledge can be traced millions of years back.
What is the validity behind the Hebraic concept of the origin of civilization, the Vedic origin of the universe, or more recently, the European Enlightenment as the harbinger of reason and progress? Knowledge has travelled in space and time disavowing any idea about the origin and authority of civilization within specific frames like Hinduism or Judaism, Modernism, and Eurocentrism.
We may try to learn how hunter-gatherers and foragers were societies with a sense of freedom and social organization. We may understand how Europe learned about reason and democracy from the Native Americans. We can also explore that the practice of multiculturalism and secularism are pervasive in the vernacular Buddhist, Islamic and many other cultures. At this juncture, for those of us who have been trying to find newer ways to do humanities (or post-humanities) in academia, it becomes imperative to be mindful of the attempts made by accomplished interlocutors.
The purpose of the seminar-workshop is to discourse on indigenous knowledge and how knowledge has always been nomadic from millions of years ago to the present. We will converse these issues with leading thinkers within the domains and interface of archeology, anthropology, and postcolonialism.
[1] See Primary Reading list. The Dawn of Everything is one of the major books for the seminar-workshop deliberations.
***********************************************************************************************************
Asian Studies Conference III
March 27-28, 2022
Marsyandi Hotel, Kathmandu
Asian Studies III was held on March 27-28, 2022 at Marsyandi Hotel Kathmandu in collaboration with CASSA and Ambition College, Kathmandu. Prof. Arun Gupto (Nepal) is working on an anthology with Dr. Lora Gonzales (USA). Interested writers can submit their abstracts within August, 2022 to Prof. Gupto (orungupto@gmail.com)
The conference focused on community studies and environmental studies by covering the following areas:
Community: Gender, City and Village
Environment: Society and Nature
Interface of Community and Environment: Art, Religion, Ethnicity, Law
***********************************************************************************************************
18th July, 2020
SAFAR & CASSA present
Comparative South Asian Studies Lecture series.
Lecture-4
Prof. Arun Gupto, PhD on “Myths of Catabiosis: Aging Lakshmana, Aging Perseus”.
Date: 18th July 2020, Saturday
Time: 10.00-11.00AM (NPT)
4th July, 2020
SAFAR & CASSA present
Comparative South Asian Studies Lecture series.
Lecture-3
Panelists: Dr. Barsha Moktan Rayamajhi and Ms. Sujana Rajkarnikar on “Work-Life Balance: A Challenge for South Asian Women”.
Date: 4th July 2020, Saturday
Time: 9.00-10.00AM (NPT)
17th June, 2020
SAFAR & CASSA present
Comparative South Asian Studies Lecture series.
Lecture-2
Dr. Diksha Dhar, Asst. Professor-English
on When Raja Goes to School and Rani Helps in the Kitchen: Exploring the Limits of Gender Representation in English Curriculum
Date: 20th June 2020, Saturday
Time: 10.00-11.00AM (NPT)
4th June 2020
SAFAR & CASSA present
Comparative South Asian Studies Lecture series.
Prof. Sangita Rayamajhi on Violence, Dignity and Honor
Date: 6th June 2020, Saturday
Time: 10.00-11.30AM (NPT)
SAFAR in collaboration with Premier University, Chittagong, Bangladesh has organized two events in Oct, 2019 at Premier University premises.
Digital Humanities Workshop and Nepal-Bangladesh Memory Studies workshop
WE FEED ON OUR PAST BUT HOW DO WE DO IT?
River Stage II, Friday, August, 3, 2018
Part of documentary “Four Gray Walls, Four Gray Towers”
Conceptualized by Arun Gupto
River Stage is an InterArt performance, a submission to the rivers in the cities when almost nothing is left but the arts to offer!Abhi Subedi and Leonard Schwartz read “Words, Mirrors, and Words,” a collection from their works! Salil Subedi’s musical composition and performance connects the river with the minds of the poets.
Camera: Renuka Khatiwada and Prabhat Humagain