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he following are excerpts from a conversation a little boy in his office seeing the way he worked between and Kazi Ashraf. on this project for years and years, even when the Nathaniel Kahn, an emerging film-maker from war [of 1971] was on. Lou was somebody who , has just believed in the ability completed and released of architecture to a documentary, My transform the world Architect: A Son’s and to create a better Journey, on his father, so c i e t y . We would the illustrious architect consider him here an Louis I. Kahn. The idealistic person. But Capital Complex project I think he found in in , designed by Dhaka a commission Kahn, takes a prominent to design a center of place in the film. government, really The conversation was his dream project taped in in because it was a new August 2003, and took Assembly Building, Dhaka, country and he knew place in the light of photo: Chetana if he did it right and if recent and unwarranted he was able to get his building interventions in Kahn’s Complex. vision done it could change the world. Kazi Ashraf (KA): How did you as a film- See “KAHN” on page 8 maker come to realize the importance of this group of buildings in Dhaka? Inside Nathaniel Kahn (NK): There are a few things Director’s Message...... 2 that come to mind. One is the importance of Lou Faculty Profile: Jagdish Sharma...... 3 [Kahn] and his work to the world of architecture, Faculty Profile: Kazi Ashraf...... 4 and also the importance of this project in the process of his work, and also, thirdly, my perception of what Interview: Ackbar Abbas...... 5 Lou did with the government of Bangladesh. My Summer Institute...... 6 first access to it is because I’ve been traveling Call for Papers...... 7 around the world seeing the places that my father Faculty & Student News...... 10 built. I saved Dhaka for last because I remember as Faculty Publications...... 12 a little boy the passion he had for this project, and as Director’s Note South Asia News 2

By Monica Ghosh beyond food and flavor to people—for instance, the interviews with Akbar Abbas (who was here as very time I walk to campus I pass alongside a part of the Hawai‘i International Film Festival green hedge. The other day, as I walked along. [HIFF]), and the documentary filmmaker Nathaniel I was overwhelmed by the sweet familiar fragrance Kahn. Abbas is best known for his scholarship on of pikake. Looking at the hedge, I noticed it was Hongkong cinema, but his HIFF presentation went covered in clusters of the fragrant, white blossoms. beyond those boundaries to include an analysis of Pikake (jasmine) is an introduced plant from . films from both Hongkong and Turkey. In our con- According to one source, the blossom was a versation, we were able to expand the geography favorite of Princess Ka‘iulani, who named it after even further, discussing Abbas’ South Asian ances- her favorite bird—another South Asian import—the try (traced through his maternal grandfather), and peacock. Besides Hawaiian royalty, pikake was a the issues and concerns of the South Asian diaspora

“The potential to strengthen South Asian Studies by exploring interactions and exchanges between Asians and the Pacific are endless…” favorite among the kings of Afghanistan, Nepal, and to Hongkong. Likewise Kazi Ashraf’s interview Persia. In the Philippines, jasmine is called sampgui- with Nathaniel Kahn, who created a documen- ta and it is the national flower of that country. It is tary—also part of the film festival—on the work also one of the national flowers of Indonesia. In and life of his father, the architect . The China, jasmine is used to flavor tea. The essence of elder Kahn’s projects spanned the globe, from the jasmine is used to flavor and scent a wide variety of United States to India and Bangladesh. Both Akbar foods and body products. In Hawai‘i, pikake is also Abbas and Louis Kahn (and, for that matter, used for leis: The simple white flower with its Nathaniel Kahn and Kazi Ashraf) are people who strong, beautiful scent symbolizes purity, simplicity, evoke the qualities and characteristics of pikake. hu m i l i t y , strength, and divine hope. As the semester ends, I would like to congratulate Pikake, which has its orgins in South Asia, traveled and wish Professor Jagdish Sharma a very happy across other parts of Asia and the Pacific to Hawai‘i. It retirement. He has taught South Asian history at the is a flower with a fragrance that inspires different uses University for over 30 years and begins his retirement and it has been adopted by various cultures uniquely. in January. Every semester the Center Coordinator, It is in the spirit of the pikake that the work of the Stu Dawrs, and my assistant in the Library, Lisa Center for South Asian Studies takes its inspiration, Nguyen, provide excellent support at many diffe r e n t where we emphasize the influence and connections of levels. Congratulations and good luck to Lisa, who South Asia to other parts of Asia and the Pacific, while graduates this semester with a Master’s in Library and respectfully recognizing differences. The potential to Information Sciences. More pikake people. strengthen South Asian Studies by exploring interac- Through this note, I hope to pass the pikake, so tions and exchanges between Asians and the Pacific you may be inspired by its simple beauty and are endless, and can be very productive in developing memorable fragrance. In the New Year, may all the stronger research and academic programs. protests against war, the Patriot Act, and military This issue of the newsletter was inspired by the expansion succeed—Pikake Peace. origins, adoption, and adaptations of pikake Aloha and Happy Holidays! 3 Fall 2003 Faculty Profile

Un i v e r s i t y . In addition, he extended his educational By Stu Dawrs reach even further by serving as a consultant to the South Pacific Commission, where he worked to hen Jagdish Sharma first arrived on the rewrite the basic high school curriculum for South University of Hawai‘i campus in 1964, his Pacific students. colleagues outside of the Now that he has retired, Jagdish has Islands didn’t expect him no plans to slow down. In the Spring to stay too long. Two of 2004 he will serve as an aff i l i a t e years after he’d received faculty member at the University of his Ph.D. from the London, and in the fall will travel to University of London’s Vietnam to teach for a semester there. School of Oriental and At present, he also has somewhere in African Studies, Jagdish the range of a half-dozen book proj- was one of only three ects in various stages of completion. historians in the United Among others, he is revising and States focusing on ancient expanding his seminal historical work India, and was being Republics in Ancient India, which will courted by such presti- be reprinted by New Delhi’s gious universities as Munshiram Manoharlal in 2004; Columbia, the University working on the final manuscript of a of Virginia and Syracuse. new book, Jinism, All the Teachings of But even when Columbia the Jinas; serving as editor (and a con- offered to triple his salary, Jagdish Sharma tributor) for the forthcoming he refused to leave the Individuals and Ideas in Tr a d i t i o n a l University of Hawai‘i. I n d i a : Ten Interpretive Studies ( w h i c h “Everybody at Columbia said that this is such an will also be published by Munshiram Manoharlal); isolated and provincial place, that I would be fed compiling a volume tentatitively titled up with it within a couple years and would be Shramanism: Six Interpretations (to which he will back,” he says. “But I found it better actually, contribute a piece on Buddhism as a Messianic because everybody came to the East-West Center movement); and working on two other manu- and to the University. And anybody can teach at scripts, J i n i s m : A Historical Perspective and J a i n a an elite university—they can buy anybody—but H e ro e s. I wanted to teach the kids who were like the “I’ve been working for twenty or thirty years v i l l a g e kids in India, the plantation kids, so I on some of these projects,” he says.“You can’t stayed here.” really produce everything while you’re teaching By the time Jagdish retired in December of this —and I’ve been offered grants in the past, but ye a r , thirty-nine and a half years after he started his only if I do projects that they tell me to do. I’ve UH career, he had certainly accomplished that goal: never accepted that: I’m a scholar and I choose At last count he had either chaired or sat on the com- my own subjects to write on. So now I’ll do them mittees of more than 150 students who recieved on my own time: I have several such manuscripts either an M.A. or Ph.D., several of whom went on to that are practically finished, so I plan to finish join the faculty in various departments of the one per year. ” South Asia News 4 Faculty Profile

perfected by Mies van der Roh, the German architect By Stu Dawrs who was working in Chicago. Prior to the 19th century, the Europeans were not doing minimalist architecture— o understand how Kazi Ashraf came it was all baroque, gaudy stuff. So where to be teaching in the University of is this coming from? The H a w a i ‘ i ’s School of Architecture, you Germans were very interested in Japanese first have to draw a physical line from architecture. … So this has been my work Bangladesh to the Eastern United States and will be part of my work for the next and on into the Pacific. You also have to few years: If I can argue that the Japanese describe a theoretical arc from India to tea house had an impact on modern Japan, through Germany and beyond. aesthetics, and that the tea house was “I was getting more and more interest- influence by Vimalakirti's house, then I ed in Japan, and I thought Hawai‘i am making a link between Vimalakirti's would be a nice place to be in the Kazi Ashraf house and modern minimalist aesthetics.” United States and looking at Japan,” he This type of boundary crossing on says. “My dissertation is about asceticism in archi- Ka z i ’ s part extends into all aspects of his life. Born in tecture. T h e m a t i c a l l y, it has to do with the hermit's Dhaka and holding post-graduate degrees from MIT hut: People renounce and then in some way they and the University of , he cites as influ- configure a house—through old Buddhist texts I ences the famed Marxist-minimalist Bangladeshi was trying to figure out the significance of these architect Mazaharul Islam (with whom he worked for huts. And that led me to Japan, to the tea house.” two years after recieving his professional degree), and The short version of this trek begins with the the equally famous American modernist ar c h i t e c t ancient Sutra Vimalakirti, which tells the tale of an Louis Kahn, whose work he has studied extensively. extremely wealthy yet enlightened businessman. Although he doesn’t adhere to a specfic architectural Hearing that a Bodhisattva was approaching his movement, he says he takes a certain amount of inspi- home with a huge retinue—and knowing that he ration from the modernists. And, like Mazaharul would be unable to entertain such a throng— Islam, he is quick to assert that architecture is not Vimalakirti empties out his home. isolated from society. “I t ’ s a parable about emptiness and cleansing “You can destroy a city by building in it—you onself,” says Kazi. “That text really grabbed the think it's progress? It's not progress,” Kazi asserts. imagination of the Japanese: Emptying things out so “You can disrupt civic culture, you can disrupt the that everything can come in. That is the basis of the social matrix, the sense of space, everything. The tea house. If you look at Japan now, you would think kind of building typologies that are prevalent all over that the aesthetic has always been sparse and mini- the sub-continent—go to any city in India—it's an malist, but a lot of medieval Japanese houses were enclave, the first thing you do is put up walls: It tells pretty Baroque. So this was an imported aesthetic. It you what people are thinking.” didn't come directly from India of course, it was Since arriving in Honolulu in Spring 2001, Kazi has refracted through China and all of that. And what the also become actively involved in the local community. Japanese did with the tea houses was to convert their Among other projects, he currently sits on the architecture to show this lesson of renunciation.” Advisory Commitee of the Doris Duke Foundation for But how does Germany enter the picture? Islamic Ar t s ’ “Shangri La” Museum. In the Spring, he “Modern architectural minimalism was really will be teaching Intermediate Architecture, Studio B. 5 Fall 2003 Interview

his year’s Hawai‘i International Film Festival matrix for responding to change. What is it you are (HIFF) featured several South Asia-related seeing in what you’re seeing? There is a kind of film screenings, symposiums and public forums. split there, which seems to parallel this split As in past years, it also brought together some of between different forms of urbanisms, like suburbia the world’s leading filmmakers, actors, and what my friend Mario and film theoreticians—among them the Gandelsonas calls “x-urbia.” He University of Hongkong’s Ackbar Abbas, do e s n ’ t emphasize this too much, who came to this year’s HIFF as the but the point that really strikes you keynote speaker for a symposium titled about how he describes it is that sub- GLOBAL/LOCAL/EXOTIC: urbia and x-urbia might in fact look Transnational Production and Auto- the same—the difference lies in the Ethnography. His presentation—“Asian way they’re framed in relationship to Cities, Asian Cinemas”—was meant to the global. Because suburbia has a address the ongoing debate over global- kind of relationship to the city of ism, globalization, and the way these Ackbar Abbas skyscrapers—the urban site of big movements are reconfiguring the exotic business, which people in the sub- from the other to “the unknown-within-the- urbs live outside of. But x-urbia obeys completely known.” di f ferent rules: It ’ s the moment when some of these Abbas is well qualified to speak on the subject, new industries—information industries—can move having published numerous essays and a widely outside the main city and still be in touch and in regarded book—Hong Kong: Culture and the control. So they moved to the suburbs and the sub- Politics of Disappearance (Minnesota UP, 1997)— urbs are now transformed: It ’ s not just a residence, covering much of Hongkong’s multi-faceted cul- it ’ s a place of entertainment, and everything you ture, including its cinema. find in the city you can find replicated in x-urbia. Among other things, he is currently co-cordinat- The key idea I wanted to develop from ing (along with University of Chicago professor of Ga n d e l s o n a s ’ writing (X-Urbanism: Ar ch i t e c t u r e art history Wu Hung and the Berlin-based House and the American City,Princeton UP, 1999) is in one of World Cultures) “On Beauty,” an exhibition and little footnote which he doesn’t expand upon. And I conference to take place in 2005. do n ’ t know yet if you can expand upon it: He says A Hongkong native, Abbas has roots in North these x-urban sites are found in the United States, India, via his maternal grandfather. The following but he also says that some of the most powerful conversation with CSAS director Monica Ghosh examples are now in Asia. So that’s how I read took place during a brief break in this year’s HIFF these “x’s” and the whole question of the visual, events. which brings us to cinema—cinema and cities. Monica Ghosh: I wanted to talk more about MG : I’m interested in the representations of your ideas on “crossings” in films. … South Asians in Hongkong. There is a tendency to Ac k b a r Abbas: You know, this idea of crossings, represent Hongkong as more Sinic and not as cos- it ’ s something to do with the whole issue of visuali- mopolitan—or rather, particularly cosmopolitan: ty—my key example would be the preserved build- More of a caucasian or white influence, that kind of

ing, which looks old and traditional but is the Please see “ABBAS” on page 7 Summer Institute South Asia News 6

he Asian Studies Development Program, a col- evolution of its electoral democracy today; and laborative effort of the University of Hawai‘i • Considering the implications of a rising tide of and the East-West Center, will conduct an NEH- Hindu fundamentalism for the survival of a pluralist funded summer institute on Religion and Politics in ethos in this part of the world. India: Culture, History and the Contemporary Ex p e r i e n c e over five weeks (June 7-July 9, 2004). Prior to the workshop, participants will be asked The Institute begins from the premise that the study to read three texts that will provide them with of contemporary worlds must be grounded in a his- shared perspectives on Indian history, culture, poli- torically rich appreciation and understanding of cul- tics and sensibilities. They are: ture and the humanities. Because of the broad ambi- • The Bhagavad Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in

“The Institute begins from the premise that the study of contemporary worlds must be grounded in a historically rich appreciation and understanding of culture and the humanities.” tions and interdisciplinary nature of the program, it Times of War, ed. and trans. Barbara Stoler Miller, will pay critical attention to primary texts (in the New York, Bantam, 1986. broadest sense, including classical literatures and • Shashi Tharoor, India: from midnight to the scriptures, oral narratives, artworks, rituals, films millennium, Penguin, 1997. and novels) drawn from both the core cultural • Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children, New canons of India and their many, often subaltern, York, Avon, 1982. folk and marginalized, alternatives. The central con- cerns during the Institute will include: In addition to these texts, on arrival participants will receive a collection of readings selected by the • Demonstrating that the relationship between the presenting faculty to provide: pertinent background political and the religious has been deeply pacific for individual program lectures and discussions; and constructive, as well as conflicted or martial; scholarly resources useful for further research; and • Developing insight into the diverse ways in textual materials useful in building India-focused which religious sensibilities have infused the polit- course modules, syllabi and curricula. ical realm with both ethical boundaries and a moral Religion and Politics in India: History, Culture aesthetic; and the Contemporary Experience is designed to • Examining the ways in which political power meet the needs of faculty from the humanities and has been deployed in extending and refining the social sciences who are interested in deepening the reach of religious traditions, most notably in the role of comparative cultural studies through the case of Buddhism and Islam; infusion of Indian materials into their teaching. Th e • Unpacking the importance of religion in fram- lectures, films, readings and discussions will be ori- ing the political ethics of leaders like Mahatma ented towards helping Institute participants con- Gandhi and Babasaheb Ambedkar; struct engaging, well-informed, and critically robust • Understanding the extraordinary importance of course modules and syllabi that will meaningfully caste as an institution and practice both for reli- integrate India into existing and planned curricula. gious traditions of India and, increasingly, for the For more information, e-mail [email protected]. 7 Fall 2003 Call For Papers

he 21st Annual Spring Symposium of the Papers addressing theoretical innovations in Center for South Asian Studies at the understanding neoliberalism in these different con- University of Hawai‘i is scheduled for April 15-16, texts are also invited. 2004. This year’s Symposium is titled Paper proposals must include presenter’s name, “Neoliberalism in South Asia: Culture, Gender, contact information (including e-mail address, and Labor.” mailing address, and telephone number), paper In the 1980s and 1990s, South Asian countries title, and abstract (no more than 250 words). If a adopted neoliberal policies that led to increased paper proposal is accepted, two nights accommo- foreign investment, export-oriented economies, dation for presenters visiting Hawai‘i will be pro- and cuts in public spending.With these transforma- vided on campus. Travel to and from Hawai‘i must tions, South Asia has become increasingly be made at the presenter’s expense. enmeshed in global and gendered flows of culture and labor. What localized responses have these Submit paper proposals to: processes generated? The CSAS Spring sympo- Center for South Asian Studies sium will focus on such key themes as: 223 Moore Hall University of Hawai‘i at Mänoa • economy/poverty Honolulu, HI 96822 • state practices and policy Or: • popular culture, film/media/TV [email protected] • gender and sustainability • women’s movements PROPOSALS ACCEPTED FROM • religion JANUARY 1, 2004-MARCH 1, 2004. • migration (domestic: rural/urban)/diaspora The CSAS Spring Symposium is made possible • labor rights via the generous support of G.J. and Ellen • technology Watumull and The Sidney Stern Memorial Trust.

ABBAS, continued from page 5 seems to go against the main idealogy of the film intersection and not so much with other As i a n s . … … the idea of the underdog rising up, you know? AA: That’s a really good point. It’s something So instead you have the Chinese underdog finding you find in Hongkong and China as well: They another underdog. seem to pretend that South Asia doesn’t exist. MG: Yes, I thought that was interesting: Th a t There’s no discourse in it: India for example— kind of racism and xenophobia embedded in a kung India might be very interested in China, but China fu film, even though ultimately the victor seems doesn’t seem interested in India. There’s no refer- like the person who needs to have some voice. … ence; it’s not present, it’s not onscreen at all. AA: Yes, a lot of liberatory discourses can be We were talking today about the Bruce Lee extremely ambiguous. Fissures and margins and film—the way in which South Asia existed would cracks: Not all cracks are progressive—they could be in the same way this Indian character is treated just be alibis. in this extremely racist and prejudicial way, which Continued on page 15 South Asia News 8

KAHN, Continued from page 1 building?” And I said “I’m not ready yet, not KA: Let me ask you this way, because other ready I just want to stand here for a moment and people will raise it, so why should we now be feel this place.” I have to say that standing on concerned about this man coming to Dhaka from Philadelphia with his dream project? NK: Well I think that’s a good question. There are several answers. One, I found in the people of Bangladesh tremendous respect for what someone has given, more respect there than we have here. This is about a man who really gave his life for this project. And I think that so many times people have given their lives for something and maybe it hasn’t turned out that well. What amazed me is how Residences, Kahn’s complex. wonderfully this project turned out photo: Chetana not only as a national treasure but an international treasure. This isn’t just my that lawn you could feel the building, you could father’s dream project, it’s also an example for the feel the space around the building. It was as if world… It’s an amazing place. I didn’t know how something was breathing there, it was air around wonderful it was until I went there. it, it was space. It’s really being in the presence The first day I was in Dhaka of something spiritual. It’s like being in the pres- guide Nurur Rahman Khan blindfolded me, and ence of a great temple. You feel it. You can feel we drove through the streets and as you know a great monument by the silence around it and Dhaka is very noisy. The sound of the baby my father talked about the silence... taxis, the sound of the trucks, the constant honk- KA: You need a silence like that in the city. ing and yelling and shouting and rickshaws and NK : Ab s o l u t e l y , a city must have silence. And of everything, it’s very exciting but it’s also very, course you can call it a park, you can call it what- very loud. And we drove through the streets… ever you want to call it but a city must have silence So we pulled up front and I got out from the taxi somewhere in the core because that is a place of and suddenly calm from which action comes. You can’t have there was soft action if it’s all just nervousness and energy . You ground under have to have a calm space. So there I stood in the my feet. A n d calm space, breathing deeply, and I said, “okay, I’m we started re a d y ,” and he took off the blindfold and there was walking up, I the south lawn in front of me, the south plaza and was being led the building rising above it with the flag, the b l i n d f o l d e d Bangladesh flag, and I burst into tears. I actually photo: Syed Zakir Hossain into this area. I burst into tears and it is the only building of my d i d n ’t know fa t h e r ’s that has ever made me cry because I felt what it was yet. And it was soft ground under this was worth everything he gave, giving up obli- my feet and sounds of the city started to recede gations to family, giving up worldly goods that he and Nurur Khan said, “Are you ready to see this could have had, money he could have had, all 9 Fall 2003 kinds of things he lawn, being a child on the lawn, gave up for this. It walking around the Crescent Lake, was worth it exploring the area that the streets because this build- go past the hostels. Everybody has ing is a timeless a story about it, and they’re won- work of great spir- derful stories. Some of them are itual power. My romantic: “I met my wife there.” immediate impres- Some of them are dramatic: “I had sion was, I didn’t a political confrontation, an impor- see anything else tant political discussion there.” around it but this Some of them are artistic: “I had Kahn’s complex building, this an idea for a book while walking form. There was photo: Chetana around that lake every morning.” nothing encroach- A very famous American architect, ing upon it. It was a pure, very pure view, and that I.M. Pei, told me before I went there, "Look, I’ve view also talks about how a government has to act seen pictures of this building but I’ve never seen with great clarity and definition and be a symbol how it’s used by people…" I was there for a week, for its people. Th a t ’ s something that deserves space two weeks actually, and every time I went I saw the around it. You can’t just shove that in the middle of building being used in different ways and that is a buildings in a city… sign of a great space. KA: Yes, one has to realize that architecture is KA: There is something else I would like to not just buildings, the material physical objects. bring up, Kahn’s interest in landscape. I don’t The space around it, that’s architecture too. People know when he really became interested in land- should realize that you need those spaces. A city is scape, although he was interested in how buildings a matrix of buildings and spaces. em e r ged from the landscape in a profound relation- NK : Ab s o l u t e l y , and the Parliament Building is ship between the two. His buildings look very the centerpiece of that matrix, no matter what hap- crisp, cubic and crystalline, but they arise from the pens in the rest of Dhaka City. Let them build else- ground in a sort of mythical manner. I think that where... progress is good but it is not progress if you especially in Bangladesh Kahn was really amazed squeeze the Parliament by building all around it. by the aquatic landscape and talked about how he KA: I like that. should do "an architecture of the land" here, what I NK : That is not progress, this is actually going call a hydrological architecture. I know that your backwards. Think of what New York would be mother is a landscape architect and she worked without Central Park, the city would not exist. I live with him for a while even on this project. I would in , the city would be utterly unlive- think, and people would say too, that Lou Kahn able if we didn’t have Central Park. It is the only brought his own American, western ideas, and place where the city breathes and the city can stop what have you, but at the same time he engaged and collect itself and remember who it is. You take a very poetically and in very imaginative ways with run through that park and you remember this is a wh a t ’ s already there, with the landscape of wonderful city. I live in the middle of all this din but Bangladesh. The result is a very new creation in I can get away from it. I was also deeply impressed Dhaka, especially the matrix not just the buildings. by the fact that everybody I’ve met in the far flung NK : Beautifully said. A couple of things come to places of the world, Bangladeshis, everybody has a mind. When the Aga Khan Award was given, they story not just about the parliament building but the said that the Parliament Building is a universal kind space around it. Everybody has a story about meet- of architecture but it could only exist here, it could ing a friend on the plaza, playing a game on the Continued on page 14 Faculty News South Asia News 10

Kazi Ashraf (Architecture) pre- This semester, Monisha Das In the Fall 2003 semester, sented a paper, “Sundarnagar: Gu p t a ’ s (Ethnic Studies / Gr eg o r y G. Maskarinec The City in Cinematic and Wom e n ’ s Studies) article, “The (Family Practice and Architetural Imagination,” at the neoliberal state and the domestic Community Health, John A. Annual Conference on South wo r k e r s ’ movement in New Burns School of Medicine) wa s Asia, University of Madison. York,” appeared in Ca n a d i a n an invited scholar in the He also presented the paper Woman Studies. Her book manu- “Milieux, Sociétes et Cultures en “Where Is Architceture” at the script, Un r uly Immigrants: Post- Himalaya” Division of France's ARCASIA (Regional Council of 1965 South Asian Activism in the Centre National de la Recherche Asian Architects) Seminar United States, is under review. At Scientifique (CNRS). There he Globalization and Asian the end of last summer, she worked toward completing his Architecture in Dhaka. In 2004 served as a discussant on an next volume of Nepalese Shaman he will present the paper “Tak i n g American Sociological Oral Tex t s (to be published by Place: The Notion of Landscape Association meetings panel on Harvard University Press in in Louis Kahn's Architecture” at Gender and Globalization. She 2004). He was simultaneously . He was recently went to the 32nd Annual South guest professor of An t h r o p o l o g y made a member of the Advisory Asian Studies conference in at the University of Paris X Committee to the Doris Duke Madison Wisconsin in October to (Nanterre), where he presented a House, and is also a member of present a paper on a panel orga n - series of lectures on Himalayan the Advisory Committee, Islamic ized by CSAS Director Monica culture, language, medicine and Arts World International. Ghosh. The paper was based on religion. He was also an invited her research on the impact of 9/11 participant of the Maison des S. Charusheela's (Wom e n ’ s on New York City taxi drivers, Sciences de l’Homme’s project St u d i e s ) new book, co-edited with the majority of whom are South “Les archives audiovisuelles de la Eiman Zein-Elabdin (Franklin and Asian. She continues to develop recherche en sciences humaines Marshall College), the 9/11 research into articles. et sociales,” in which parts of his Postcolonialism meets Economics, audio-visual field collections was just published by Routledge Pe t e r H. Hoffe n b e r g ’ s (History) from Nepal will be archived. this Fall. She attended the es s a y , “Photography and International Association for Architecture at the Calcutta Chennat Gopalakrishnan Feminist Economics conference at International Exhibition,” was pub- (Natural Resources & the Centre for Gender and lished in Traces of India: En v i r onmental Management), Development Studies at the Ph o t o g r a p h y , Ar ch i t e c t u r e, and the has been selected Fellow of the University of West Indies, Politics of Representation, 1850- American Water Resources Barbados, this summer; and pre- 1900 (Maria Antonella Pelizzari, Association, the leading associa- sented at the International Gala ed. Yale Center for British Art and tion of water professionals in the conference of Re t h i n k i n g Canadian Centre for Ar c h i t e c t u r e ) . U.S. The selection recognizes Ma r xi s m , “Marxism and the His article “Promoting Tra d i t i o n a l Gopalakrishnan's record of schol- World Stage.” Charu will be on Indian Art at Home and Ab r o a d : arship in a branch of water leave in Spring, and will spend her The Journal of Indian Art and resources science or technology time visiting with the Department In d u s t r y , 1884-1917,” will be pub- and his outstanding contributions of Women's Studies and the South lished in a forthcoming, special to the water resources community. Asian Studies Program at isssue on South Asia of Vic t o r i a n Gopalakrishnan is one of three University of Was h i n g t o n . Periodicals Review. Fellows selected in 2003. He was 11 South Asia News presented the award at a special Asia in Madison, Wisconsin, Leading American Writers on function of the American Wat e r October 24, 2004. Their States Within the Union. Resources annual meeting held in L’Amour dans une langue morte , San Diego on November 2, 2003. Sankaran Krishna, (P o l i t i c a l a French translation of his novel Gopalakrishnan's edited volume of Sc i e n c e ) , working in association Love in a Dead Language wa s original papers titled Wat e r with the Asian Studies published by Editions Philippe Institutions: Struc t u r e, Development Program of the East Picquier in Paris. And his novel, Performance, and Pros p e c t s West Center, was awarded an Love and Other Games of (Springer) is scheduled for publi- NEH grant for $ 180,000 to con- Ch a n c e , will be issued in paper- cation in 2004. His paper, co- duct a summer institute on back by Penguin Books in authored with Phuong Dang and “Religion and Politics in India: Ja n u a r y . titled “An Application of the Hi s t o r y , Culture and the Contingent Valuation Method Contemporary Experience.” Th e Student Notes (CVM) to Estimate the Loss of Institute will be held at the East Value of Water Resources due to West Center between June 7 and Matthew Lopres t i (P h i l o s o p h y ) Pesticide Contamination: The Case July 9, 2004, and will include, currently serves as Lecturer of of the Mekong Delta, Vie t n a m ” among others, Gyan Pandey, Sunil Buddhist Philosophy and Field was published in the December Ku m a r , Ram-Prasad Chakravarthi, Research Advisor on the An t i o c h issue of the International Journal Parna Sengupta, Itty Ab r a h a m , College Buddhist Studies Ab r o a d of Water Resources Development M.S.S. Pandian, Lalitha Gopalan, program in Bodh Gaya, India. As (O x f o r d ) . Ruby Lal and many others. Th o s e a language fellow with the Gopalakrishnan presented two interested in knowing more about American Institute of Indian invited talks on water institutions, the Institute may contact Krishna Studies, Matthew completed an economics, and policy in the at [email protected]. advanced Sanskrit language pro- American West at two major pro- gram at Deccan College in Pune, fessional conferences—the first at During his Fall 2003 sabbatical, India, this past summer. In Ap r i l the Western Economic As s o c i a t i o n Lee Siegel (R e l i g i o n ) has been a 2004, Matthew will complete the annual meeting held in Denver in resident fellow at the Rockefeller comprehensive examinations for July 2003 and the second at the Fo u n d a t i o n ’ s Villa Serbelloni in his M.Phil. and will submit his American Water Resources Bellagio, Italy. He was one of dissertation proposal for the Association annual meeting held thirty-three featured authors at the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in San Diego in November 2003. Internationales Literaturfestival in on existentialism, embodiment, Berlin, and was a speaker and and religious experience. Monica Ghosh(South Asia panelist at the South As i a n Librarian, CSAS Director) Literary and Theater Arts Festival John R. Pincince (H i s t o r y) is organized and chaired a panel in Washington, D.C. He lectured completing his dissertation on titled Transnational Crossings: on and performed traditional V.D. Savarkar, which he will Film, Sexuality, and Work and Indian street magic at the defend in August 2004. represented a paper titled, Academie de Magie in Paris and “Mohamed Rafi rocks and Amir at Williams College in Ashwin Raj (Political Science) Khan swings (a bat) as Massachusetts. His essay on presented a paper in November Bollywood crosses over on a Hawai‘i was published by Nation 2003 at the Rethinking Marxism two-way street,” at the 32nd Books in John Leonard’s Th e s e Conference at University of

Annual Conference on South United States: Original Essays by continued on page 12 South Asia News 12

Student News, continued from page 11 Massachusetts (Amherst) international gala con- ference—Marxism on the World Stage. Th e he J. Watumull Scholarship for the Study paper was titled “‘Good’ Governance: Nirvana in of India was established to promote an age of Global Capitalism.” understanding of India through scholarship support of University of Hawai‘i students with As part of her work funded by the J. a focused and well-developed proposal to Watumull Scholarship for the Study of India, study for a minimum of two months in India. Jessica Schmidt (Political Science) s p e n t The scholarship, which is generously support- six weeks of her summer in Mumbai, Dhaka, ed by the Watumull Foundation, provides up and Kolkata, to get acclimated to life in to $5,000 to students in areas of study such as the visual and performing arts, history, philos- India and to undergo language immersion in op h y , religion, and politics, as well as any preparation for an extended trip during the other field including the professional schools spring of 2004. While she is still in the and community college programs. Further process of finalizing arrangements, she will information and applications are available most likely spend next semester at Calcutta online at http://www.hawaii.edu/ csas/watu- University as a visiting scholar, attending mull.html, by e-mail at [email protected], or classes and seminars in the fields of political by calling the Center for South Asian Studies science and economics. at (808) 956-5652

Spring Courses

AMST 318 Asian America: Survey TR 9:00 - 10:15 M. Das Gupta ART 791 Hindu Art of South Asia R 1:30-4 N. Dowling HNDI 102 Elementary Hindi MWF 10:30 - 11:55 R. Sharma HNDI 202 Intermediate Hindi MWF 8:30 - 9:55 R. Sharma SNSK 182 Intro to Sanskrit TR 9:00 - 10:15 R. Sharma SNSK 282 Intermediate Sanskrit TR 11:00 - 12:15 R. Sharma SNSK 381 Third-Level Sanskrit TR 2:30 - 3:45 R. Sharma HIST 241 Civilizations of Asia MWF 1:30 - 2:20 T. Goodman HIST 241 Civilizations of Asia MWF 11:30 - 12:20 L. Kelley HIST 302 History of India and Pakistan MWF 2:30 - 3:20 S. Gupta PACE 412 Gandhi, King, and Nonviolence TR 3:00 - 4:15 S. Dixon PHIL 360 Buddhist Philosphy TR 9:00-10:15 R. Perrett PHIL 750 Seminar in Indian Philosophy M 12:45-3:15 TBA POLS 615 Feminist Theory M1:30-4:00 M. Das Gupta REL 662B Indian Religions M1:30-4:00 L. Siegel ASAN 312 Contemporary Asian Civilizations TR 12:00 - 1:15 L. Carlile ASAN 491I Topics in Asian Studies: South Asia TBA M. Sharma ASAN 493 Globalization in Asia MWF 8:30-9:20 S. Gupta 13 Fall 2003 Faculty Publications Postcolonialism Meets Economics

S. Charusheela and to ante-bellum South. It is Eiman Zein-Elabdin, eds. theoretical: embracing not only Routledge Press, 2003 postcolonial theory and the full range of economic theory from regression analysis to post- he orthodox left Keynesianism, but also feminism, “Tsilences postcolo- critical race theory, and subaltern nial theory with the eco- studies. Of particular interest are nomic instance. And the the critical essays that carefully discipline of economics orient the reader into the direc- has remained untouched tions of the interventions. A by postcolonial theory. much-needed compendium.” Postcolonialism Meets —Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, E c o n o m i c s steps into the Avalon Foundation Professor in the breach. It is historical: Humanities, Columbia University; going from Nassau D i r e c t o r, Center for Comparative Senior to colonial Peru; from contemporary Literature and Society.

Love and Other Games of Chance turn of the century to his attempts to beat Sir Lee Siegel Edmund Hillary to the top of Mount Everest— \Viking, 2003 are woven together into one exceptionally tall tale. Depending on one's point of view, this is either the book's failing or its forte: the reader his second hardly has time to take in Schlossberg's romance “T novel by with a Hindu snake charmer, for example, before Siegel (Love in a he flies off to a different corner of the earth, a Dead Language) di f ferent occupation and a different woman. At lives up to its subti- the beginning and end of the novel are some- tle: it's organized as what more grounded first-person accounts by a a game of Snakes writer called Lee Siegel, Schlossberg's estranged and Ladders, with son, who explains that "a person's lies always each chapter representing a square on the game reveal some truth about them." The whole enter- board; the reader can choose between a tradi- prise is finally redeemed by Siegel's amusing tional reading, from start to finish, and a playful deadpan style: "The end of the war was... a blow one, letting the roll of the dice decide. The story to my father.... without a government paycheck... follows Isaac Schlossberg, a swindler, circus my father had to take agricultural work, using performer and entertainer. As Schlossberg travels [his plane] to spray citrus groves with a poison around the world (and across the board), his that, developed for use on German infantrymen, stunts—from childhood appearances in sideshow proved lethal to American fruit flies.” acts with his Jewish immigrant parents at the —Publisher’s Weekly South Asia News 14

Kahn, continued from page 9 twin thing, to live with the landscape and it is a city. only be in Dhaka. It is a timeless building but it is It ’ s not an anti-city, that landscape and city are not also very specific to this place. My father’s first antithetical. That I think was a challenge. response when he came to Dhaka was to go on the N K : I’m sure. And he didn’t impose the west- river because he realized that flying in, and you ern grid. It is much freer, more like the delta realize that flying in, that this is delta country. It is c o u n t r y. It is not rigid, it’s not canalled, it’s a land that meandering. The river goes this way and it goes is floating that way. on water. KA: Even through the geometry of Kahn. And he took NK: Sure. It has a porosity to it. Water passes a boat on through, air passes through and this is space. So the river it’s taking a chunk of space and defining it. and the first KA: That’s what I’ve also been saying, that if thing he there is a model or a paradigm of a so-called drew was— Bengali city, it is perhaps this. Even though it has Nathaniel Kahn at the Capital th e r e ’ s a been proposed by a Jewish architect from Complex, Dhaka, Bangladesh beautiful lit- Philadelphia, it is a model of a Bengali city. One tle series of doesn’t have to be a Bengali to do that. drawings—little boats... When we were figuring NK : Ab s o l u t e l y , and this raises something won- out how to get to the building in the film, we derful which is that what Lou was after…an archi- decided it has to rise out of the water. It is like an tecture that came from before the beginning of his- impossible, wonderful castle that lives in the mid- to r y . He was interested in creating an architecture dle of the water. The fact that Lou put it in water is that was so ancient that it was more ancient than very significant for several reasons. Th e r e ’ s a prac- anything you’ve ever seen and I think in Dhaka he tical reason, the water rises and falls. Yes, it’s on did that. And this is part of what people respond to dry land but really this whole place is floating on from all over the world. They go there and they the water. And so I think his specific response to think, “God, where is this from?’ It belongs here the place, to the landscape was very, very strong, yet it has this resonance of something enormously and that building was not something he just kind of ancient. Was it built ten years ago, was it built stuck there. It was something that grew out of his 10,000 years ago? You don’t know. And that is experience of the land of Bangladesh. And I think something, that wonderful ambiguity and that reach that it was very clear to him—he actually said this, for something very ancient and very fundamental. which is interesting, that his dream more than any- KA: You know this idea of a Bengali City could thing else, more than designing individual build- be entertained in two ways. This sense of very ings, was to design the basis on which buildings archaic as you just mentioned, this idea of Volume would be built. So you’re worried about matrix. Zero if you like. That sort of Bengali City could Th a t ’ s a plan, that’s a master plan. It’s something have been there 2,000 years ago. But at the same he couldn’t do anywhere else in the world. He tried time it could be the Bengali City that could be in Philadelphia, he was denied. And Philadelphia 2,000 years from now. We’re getting into wild now is suffering the consequences… Anyway I speculation but it’s that sort of a model as you think his response was very strong: I want to create said Kahn gave the foundation to. From the foun- not just a building that serves a parliamentary pur- dation any kind of building can come up in any pose but a building in a landscape, a building in a style and material, glass, aluminum, steel, brick… landscape that responds to and expresses the actual that is not important, what is important is the way landscape that is native. the matrix is set up, that’s what he gave here and KA: And at the same time it’s a city, so there is a what we really need to analyze. 15 Fall 2003

ABBAS, continued from page 7 [ L a u g h t e r.] But one of the things I was introduc- MG: And that makes so much sense in terms of ing to the discussion was an essay by Te n a z a k i — middle class allegiances and alliances among peo- ”In Place of Shadows.” One of the things about ple of color in the west: You’re a “crack,” but your that essay is that he talks about toilets; how the crack is aligned with the dominant perspective, so best place to see beauty in Japan is in these toi- you don’t end up changing anything. lets, which are basically outhouses. And he makes I’m curious about the South Asian community in these cultural comparisons: In America you want Hongkong … could you tell me a little about your to separate the dirty and the clean; in Japan, the own experience? dirty and the clean are linked to each other, and AA: In a way, I was always in Hongkong but that produces a different kind of aesthetic. He not—you understand that a lot of us were like also talks about lacquerware: It might look that, in that my family was English speaking, or extremely garish in the daytime. But if you think tried to be English speaking in a situation which about the dim lighting of a traditional Japanese is predominantly Chinese speaking. Of course, in house, under those circumstances, you understand those days, not knowing Chinese was a sort of a why it’s done that way. qualification, it placed you in a special class. So, MG: It’s in a particular reflection and light and they sort of deliberately avoided learning tradition that the beauty really emerges. … Chinese, and they inculcated these attitudes in AA: That’s right—so it’s a kind of comparative their children. When I was growing up in the aesthetics. I have an ambivalent relationship 1940s and 1950s, Hongkong was a very diff e r e n t toward [Theodor] Adorno—his Aesthetic Theory is kind of place and China was a very diff e r e n t certainly a great book … but at any rate, the rea- place. All you saw from China in those days were son I mention him is that he starts out with ugli- the more corrupt things that came through—the ness—the whole question of the ugly and the more debased things like the merchandise. A n d grotesque. that really molded one’s view—it was some time M G : And it seems to me that the grotesque before I was able to get out of that prejudice, and and the ugly are currently of much more interest I did it in the usual way—through art. You see the with the grotesqueness of wars and political art and how great it is, and then you start rethink- p o l i c i e s . … ing the history. AA: Yes, it’s like this continunation of intellec- MG: The project you are involved in in Berlin, tual enlightenment: He’s basically saying that in a “On Beauty,” is it something that is Sinic, or is it sense you begin with fear and the ugliness of the wider than that? world, and beauty is a kind of recuperation— A A : I t ’s wider, it’s several things: One is an t h a t ’s why it’s always something that’s slightly exhibition, which is being created by Wu Hong. compromised. When you’re negating something, But the other component is a set of conferences the way you negate it also negates itself. In a on how we approach a topic like beauty today. w a y, it’s a kind of illusion, but it’s a neccessary So we take many different angles on it. illusion. So we’ll do things with that kind of dou- MG: The reason I was curious about the topic ble move back. of beauty is that one of our faculty, A r i n d a m MG: And beauty provides an avenue of hope Chakrabarti, does comparative philosophy of rather than despair. Western and Indian philosophers. He’s looking at AA: Yes. It doesn’t sentimentalize the idea of a Kashmiri philosopher’s views on the grotesque beauty, but at the same time it’s not taking the and then reading Western art through that theory opposite view that ugly is more important. So it’s of the grotesque. … a way of historicizing the argument: Under what AA: One of the things we’re trying to get away circumstances would certain ideas of beauty from is Kant, which is not an easy thing to do. become dominant? SOUTH ASIA NEWS STAFF Monica Ghosh CSAS Director Stu Dawrs CSAS Coordinator

Contributions of articles, book reviews and commentaries are welcome. Please send them to us at [email protected]

We also thank those who have supported the Center with monetary contributions in recent years. These funds provide a flexi- ble resource to supplement our (rapidly declining) university operating budget and permits us to augment our South Asia activities. Nathaniel Kahn’s My Architect screened as part of this year’s Hawai‘i International Film Festival. For Your tax-deductible contributions are an interview with the filmmaker, please see Page 1. greatly appreciated and can be made payable to University of Hawai‘i An interview with festival participant Ackbar Abbas Foundation Account No. 130910, c/o can be found on page 5. Center for South Asian Studies Moore 411, University of Hawai‘i Honolulu, HI, 96822 USA.

Center for South Asian Studies School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies Moore Hall 411 1890 East-West Road University of Hawai‘i-Manoa Honolulu, Hawai‘i, 96822 USA