Gandhi’s Ascetic Activism: Renunciation and Social Action

By Veena R. Howard (State University of New York: 2014)

Speakers: Prof. Anjoo Sharan Upadhyaya, Distinguished Professor, MIT, World Peace University, School of Public Policy, Pune; Prof. Makarand Paranjape, Centre for English Studies, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Prof. Ramdas Lamb, Dept. of Religion, University of Hawaii; and Prof. Madhu Jain, Founding Member, Tantra Foundation

Chair: Dr. Bibek Debroy, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India

(Collaboration: The Tantra Foundation Library)

Vivan Sundaram, artist will speak on: ‘Diverge’. 

In the lecture, the artist will share key images from various series of works across 50 years of his career. These images contextualize major turning points that have shaped his artistic enquiry.

Vivan Sundaram is a prolific contemporary artist, engaging with everything from drawings, paintings, photographs to installation art. His works actively engage with social and political history, and question complex ideas such as memory, history, and problems of identity. His multidimensional projects often involve audience participation to push art beyond its traditional boundaries.

He has exhibited in various Biennials across the world as well as several important exhibitions in Tate Modern, London; International Centre for Photography, New York; Haus der Kunst, Munich; and the Chicago Cultural Centre, Chicago, among others.

Zoom Registration: https://zoom.us/j/88417434471

Meeting ID: 884 1743 4471

(Collaboration: J.D. Centre of Art)
 

Migration, Informality, and the Growing Precarity of Work

Speaker: Prof. Ravi Srivasavta, Director, Centre for Employment Studies, Institute for Human Development, Delhi

(Collaboration: Council for Social Development)

Presented by The Lyric Ensemble of Delhi

Sopranos: Aastha Mohapatra, Meera Arora, Serene Philip
Contralto: Ankur Dang
Baritone: Johnson Joseph Wilson

Accompanied on the piano by Hanna Pashkevich on the piano

A musical soiree with European vocal music through the ages in several languages

Rohmer in Paris (UK/France) | Click here to watch
(67 min; 2013; English and with subtitles)
Director: Richard Misek

A love letter to legendary novella vague filmmaker, Eric Rohmer and the world capital of cinema. The film begins with a chance encounter with Rohmer in 1994, while he was filming Rendez-vous in Paris on location in Montmarte. This accidental connection becomes the basis for a passionate exploration of Rohmer’s lifelong relationship with the city and the many cinematic journeys he made through it. Innovatively combining documentary, speculative fiction, and remix, the film provided a narrated tour of Rohmer’s works, of modern Paris, and of the pains and pleasures of cinephilia

https://vimeo.com/234036554
 

(77 min; 1997; English)
Director: Peter Meyer
Hosted by Danny Glover

Recipient of the Certificate of Merit, Documentary Short, Chicago International Film Festival 1997; and Lone Star Film & Television Award for Best Documentary, Lone Star Film and Television Award 1998

 An in-depth, award-winning documentary on the life and music of legendary bluesman Robert Johnson. Mixing rare photographs, exclusive interviews, and dramatic re-creations, director Peter Meyer presents a compelling portrait of this enigmatic figure. Hosted by Danny Glover with Keb' Mo' as Robert Johnson, featuring Johnny Shines, Honeyboy Edwards, John Hammond, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards.

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (Germany) | Click here to watch
(90 min; 2010; English)
Directors: Werner Herzog & Dmitry Vasyukov 

Deep in the Siberian wilderness, a mere 300 people inhabit the village of Bakhtia. It can only be reached in two ways: boat and helicopter. Happy People tells the incredible story of a society untouched by modernity.

http://www.documentaryarea.tv/player.php?title=Happy%20People%20A%20Yea…
 

An eight-part BBC series in which British art historian Dr Gus Casely-Hayford explores the pre-colonial history of some of Africa's most important kingdoms.

Episode 7: The Berber Kingdom of Morocco (60 min)
Director: Ian Lilley

It is easy to think of Islamic North Africa as Arab, rather than African. But the land that is now Morocco once lay at the centre of a vast African Kingdom that stretched from northern Spain to the heart of West Africa. It was created by African Berbers, and ruled for centuries by two dynasties that created tremendous wealth, commissioned fabulous architecture, and promoted sophisticated ideas. But art historian Dr. Gus Casely-Hayford reveals how the very forces that forged the kingdom ultimately helped to destroy its indigenous African identity.

(85 min; 1995; English)
Director: James Kent

The grand themes of Albert Camus' work and life are documented in three chapters: the Absurd, Revolt, and Happiness. His novels The Stranger, The Plague, The Rebel, The Fall and The First Man are all discussed, as well as his childhood in French Algeria, sometimes difficult friendships, role in The Resistance during WWII, 1957 Nobel Prize, his issues with Communism, living in exile in the '50s, and his accidental death at 47. His life is spoken about by the narrator, his sister-in-law, his son, his daughter, friends, critics, scholars and mistresses. The impression is of Camus as a charismatic, flawed, and yet principled man when it came to the task of confronting human existence without conforming.

POSTPONED

Speaker: Tony Joseph, journalist, former Editor, BusinessWorld and author of the best-selling book Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestor and Where we Came From

Chair: Ganesh Devy, Literary critic, activist and Chairperson, People’s Linguistic Survey of India

In the last few years, our understanding of how the world got peopled in prehistory has changed significantly, thanks mostly to recent advances in the discipline of Population Genetics. All large population groups, we know now, are the result of multiple migrations that lasted centuries and, in some cases millennia, in the ancient past, each of them driven by historical forces. This context is crucial to understanding how four large, prehistoric migrations contributed to shaping Indian demography as it is today.

(Organised by IIC-International Research Division)