In Memoriam Prof Aseema Sinha Of
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Politics & International Studies Newsletter, no. 24 October 2018 Politics and International Studies Newsletter In Memoriam social life of the Department. The images below are from that event: It is with profound sorrow that SOAS announces the passing of Professor Lawrence Sáez on 11 September, following a protracted battle with cancer. Lawrence was a Professor of the Political Economy of South Asia. He joined the Department as a permanent member in 2007, and had since made significant contributions to the teaching of political economy and research methods. In 2015, he served as Head of Department, and had been working actively as the Department’s REF Coordinator into his final months. He continued his teaching and research after his diagnosis, inspiring both colleagues and students with his resilience, honesty and humour. Prof Aseema Sinha of Claremont McKenna College Lawrence was a dear and well-respected member of the remembers Lawrence (via Rochana Bajpai): Department. He was truly collegial, a source of guidance Lawrence Sáez’s contributions to studies of Indian and camaraderie to so many of us, taking the Department’s duties and future as seriously as he did its political economy and to comparative studies of India social life and present. As students’ tributes to him testify, and China are significant and far-reaching. Lawrence he was also a well-loved and cherished mentor to many brought back real politics into the institutional studies generations at SOAS. of Indian federalism, reviving a field and highlighting His high spirits throughout his illness and treatment were the linkages of institutional federal politics to a testament to his strength of character, optimism, and economic liberalization processes and changes in the perspective. party politics of the time. He presciently saw the Lawrence’s passing is a great loss for the Department, movement of economic reforms to the states in India and a severe blow to his friends and colleagues. He is and set in motion a whole generation of studies that already much missed. began to focus on state-level reforms. He went on to A public memorial service will be held at SOAS with a write comparative studies of India and China’s date to be confirmed. A celebration was held for him in banking reforms, and conceptualized India as a June where members of the Department paid tributes to Hybrid Market capitalism model. He was productive all the ways Lawrence had transformed the scholarly and across many subfields—Indian political economy, 1 Politics & International Studies Newsletter, no. 24 October 2018 federalism, economic liberalization, India-China Tahani Mustafa (‘Quasi-State Institution Building: comparison, energy policy, political economy of Security Sector Reform in the Occupied Palestinian India-Pakistan competition, among many other Territories’); themes. His contributions will be sorely missed and Heba Negm (on alliance patterns in the Middle East as important, his teaching, and collaborations with with particular reference to the Iranian-Syrian axis); students and co-authors. He was an innovative and Lewis Turner (‘Challenging Refugee Men: thinker, an academic who supported his students and Humanitarianism and Masculinities in Za’tari Refugee peers, and a wonderful co-author. Camp’). Many warm congratulations to all. Recent doctoral student Veronica Ferreri has been awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the Leibniz- Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. Emanuelle Degli Eposti has accepted a postdoctoral research post at the Centre for Islamic Studies at Cambridge University starting in November. Lewis Turner has accepted a post as senior researcher focused on humanitarian work with Syrian refugees in the Middle East at Freiburg University in Germany. Doctoral student Salman Rafi Shaikh was awarded a SOAS Research Scholarship for his research on the fragmentation of hegemonic ethnic groups. From left to right: Simona Vittorini, Rochana Bajpai and Doctoral student Guy Eyre was awarded a Research Lawrence Saéz – on 24 August 2018 Scholarship from the British Society for Middle East Studies (BRISMES) for his research on religion and politics in North Africa (focusing on Morocco and Appointments, Awards, Honours Algeria). PhD candidate Adélie Chevée received the Abdullah Many congratulations to Meera Sabaratnam for her Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah Foundation / BRISMES promotion to Senior Lecturer and Leslie Vinjamuri Scholarship in July. for her promotion to Reader. SOAS PhD student Ibrahim Nyei has been We are all very excited for our newly minted doctors: admitted into the prestigious Adam Smith Fellowship at the George Mason University. Ibrahim was Sameen Ali (‘Politicisation of the Bureaucracy and selected after a competitive recruitment process after Political Access in Pakistan’); which about 100 students were selected worldwide Emanuelle Degli Eposti (‘Sectarianising the for the 2018/19 cohort. The fellowship will run from Subject: Identity, Ideology and the Unconscious in 2018 - 2019 and will entail series of colloquial in the Iraqi Shi’a Diaspora’); London and at the George Mason University. The Veronica Ferreri (‘A State of Permanent Loss: War first colloquium of the fellowship which took place in and Displacement in Syria and Lebanon’); London in September focused on Liberty and the Matthew Godwin (‘A Force in Foreign Affairs, Market Process from selected works of F.A. Hayek. Tamil Diaspora Interest Group Lobbying in Canada The Adam Smith Fellowship is a co-sponsored and the United Kingdom’, co-supervised with Sherrill program of the Mercatus Center and Liberty Fund, Stroschein of UCL); Inc. Adam Smith Fellowships are awarded to graduate students attending PhD programs in a Vino Kanapathipillai (‘The state-corporate-security variety of fields including economics, philosophy, nexus’); political science, and sociology. The aim of the Sabrina Mondschein (‘Building Bilateral Ties fellowship is to introduce students to and encourage through Third Party Catalysts: A Case Study of the them to critically engage key thinkers in political China-Colombia Relationship and New Mechanisms economy that they might not otherwise encounter of Foreign Policy Change’); during their graduate studies. 2 Politics & International Studies Newsletter, no. 24 October 2018 In July Catherine Craven won a scholarship to comparative study of Africa’s state buildings’ started attend a Summer School at Central European on 1 September 2018. Julia has been joined by post- University in Budapest titled ‘The National and the doctoral researcher Dr Daniel Mulugeta Gebrie Transnational’, which brought together scholars from and doctoral researchers Kuukuwa Manful and across the social sciences to discuss the ways in which Innocent Batsani Ncube. their research was ‘decentering’ dominant forms of Julia Gallagher was recognised in the ISA knowledge production. International Political Sociology book prize with an Fiona Adamson, as part of a consortium led by the ‘honourable mention’ for her book, Zimbabwe’s University of Liège in Belgium, was awarded a European International Relations: fantasy, reality and the making of the Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework state, published by Cambridge University Press in Programme grant on the topic of Migration Governance and 2017. Asylum Crisis (MAGYC). The consortium of 13 universities in Europe, Turkey and Lebanon will receive Arshin Adib-Moghaddam was elected Honorary approximately 3.2 million Euros of which the SOAS share Fellow of Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge. is approximately 400,000 Euros. Senior membership of the college comes with several Meera Sabaratnam has been appointed as the rights and direct access to the scholarly networks institutional lead for the Decolonising SOAS throughout Cambridge University. initiative. Carlo Bonura was a runner-up for the Director’s Meera’s book Decolonising Intervention: International Teaching Prize. Carlo was nominated in the category Statebuilding in Mozambique came joint 3rd in the for inspirational teaching for staff in post more than Sussex International Theory Prize 2018 for best book four years. In staff-student fora Carlo is routinely in International Theory. mentioned by our students, particularly for his work on ISPs. Professor Stephen Chan has been awarded a British Academy grant of £9000 to write, with Dr Ranka Akanksha Mehta’s doctoral dissertation, ‘Right- Primorac of the University of Southampton, a Wing Sisterhood: Everyday Politics of Hindu political history of Zambia as evidenced in the literary Nationalist Women in India and Zionist Settler works of that nation. Women in Israel- Palestine,’ won the Best Dissertation Award from EISA. The award citation In July, the SOAS Engagement and Impact Fund read, ‘There were many excellent nominations and (EIF) awarded Phil Clark £6000 to conduct seven the selection process was very competitive. The book launches in seven countries over the next committee found your dissertation most impressive year. The EIF enables SOAS researchers to increase in terms of originality, creativity, intellectual analysis, policymakers’ and practitioners’ uptake of their and independent thinking. Your comparative account research findings. With this funding, Phil will launch of the religious right and the everyday in India and his upcoming monograph, Distant Justice: The Impact of Israel provides an impressive account of the power of the International Criminal Court on African Politics populist politics, colonial practices and gendered (Cambridge University Press) through