V.P. DUTT MEMORIAL LECTURE 2021

Speaker: Prof. Andrew J. Nathan, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University

Chair: Amb. Ashok Kantha, Director, Institute of Chinese Studies

The Biden Administration has continued the Trump Administration’s declaratory policy identifying China as a “strategic competitor.” It has retained Trump’s tariffs, the “Quad,” and other polices. Yet Biden’s China policy differs in five important ways. First, it is coordinated within the administration. Second, it seeks cooperation with allies. Third, it places emphasis on strengthening the U.S. rather than weakening China. Fourth, it raises the profile of the human rights issue. Finally, besides competition, it seeks cooperation with China on issues of common interest. While Trump called the relationship a strategic competition, Biden is treating it truly as that.

BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP

Womb of Time by Laljee Verma (Cyberwit.net, New Delhi: 2019)

Discussants: Prof. Radha Chakravarty, poet, critic, translator; Dr. Rumki Basu, Professor of Political Science, Jamia Millia Islamia, poet and author; and 
Air Marshal (Dr.) Laljee Verma, AVSM (Retd.), poet and author of the book.

Chair: Dr. Amarendra Khatua, former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs and former Director General, Indian Council for Cultural Relations

Moderator: Ms Mandira Ghosh, poet and author

(Collaboration: The Poetry Society, India)

A festival of Spanish films that showcases the work of four exceptional filmmakers organised in collaboration with Cervantes Institute, New Delhi and Alcalá de Henares Film Festival (ALCINE). Envisioned as a dialogue between two works (a short film and a feature film) of each filmmaker, the festival includes the films of directors Juanjo Giménez, Álex Montoya and Belén Macias and producer María del Puy Alvarado. Four filmmakers with different perspectives that showcases the diversity, vitality, robust presence and promising future of Spain’s younger directors. 

The online screenings will be held throughout April 2021 with a screening of two works each by the four filmmakers. All the films will be accessible for a period of 48 hours starting from 23:30 hours onwards on the dates indicated below. The Vimeo link of each film is provided below.

WEEK DEDICATED TO MARÍA DEL PUY ALVARADO

Screening on 27th April 2021 from 23:30 hrs onwards
Pulse (Press)  
[17 min; 2013; b/w; Ukrainian with English subtitles]
Direction, Script & Editing: Álvaro Giménez Sarmiento 

It is the end of 2008 and the lifeless body of young Anna Skobalski, fourteen years old, is found on the outskirts of Kiev.

Click here to view this film.

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Screening on 30th April 2021 from 23:30 hrs onwards
Antonio Muñoz Molina: The Writer’s Job (Antonio Muñoz Molina: El oficio del escritor)
[60 min; 2014; Spanish with English subtitles]
Direction, Script & Editing: Álvaro Giménez Sarmiento 

Documentary on the life of writer, Antonio Muñoz Molina, one of the greatest figures in Spanish contemporary literature, who has been spending his time, between Madrid and New York for many years now. Spain is where his family is, his home, and his publishing house. A place where he grew up and a place that he never really left. New York is home to his dreams and its appeal lies in the anonymity of its streets, the relative quietness of his public life, and his work at the University of London.

Click here to view this film.

A documentary series presented by Michael Wood, exploring magnificent masterpieces of the Western world in their cultural and historical settings. The series consists of eighteen episodes, each of which focuses on the artistic contributions of one period in the history of the West, from Ancient Greece to the late 1980s. From the classical ideals in Greek and Roman antiquity, through the Renaissance, to the postmodernism of the later 1980s, the series provides a panorama of 2000 years of architecture, painting and sculpture, and studies the art masterpieces as reflections of the Western culture that produced them.

Two episodes will be presented every week online
A FRESH VIEW: IMPRESSIONISM AND POST-IMPRESSIONISM 

Episode 13: Painting the Modern World [25:51 min]
Courbet and his followers rejected the standard academic themes and techniques, Manet shocked Paris, and Impressionists represented the world bathed in colour and changing light.

Click here to view Episode 13.

Episode 14: Distanced Creations [26:23 min]
Post-Impressionists Seurat, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Cezanne broke new ground with daring and imaginative use of colour and approaches to form.

Click here to view Episode 14.

A DW DocFilm

[42:36 min; 2021; English]

Why are anxiety disorders on the rise? Is there a pill for fear? Fear can cause trembling, a racing heart, sweating, and stress. How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting our sense of fear? Can a fear of heights be conquered with the help of virtual reality? Why do so many people enjoy being scared, and what positive effects can it have? When we are afraid, the amygdala in our brain takes control of body and mind. In recent years, scientists around the world have succeeded in further decoding human fear and developing completely new therapies. At the University of Freiburg Medical Center, a team led by psychiatrist Katharina Domschke is investigating the cause of panic attacks. The experts’ lab experiments reveal something surprising.

Click here to view this film
 

[73:22 min]

Video recording of the sold-out concert by the three internationally celebrated opera artists – José Carreras, Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti held at Los Angeles’ Dodgers Stadium on July 16, 1994, with conductor Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Chorus of the Los Angeles Music Center Opera.

A film by Jacques Sarasin

[87 min; 2008; English]

In this hard-hitting documentary about the perils and promises of globalization, Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz takes a tour of the world which starts in his hometown of Gary, Indiana.

As we travel the globe, Stiglitz explains that globalization is not only a story of environmental disaster and pressure on wages and working standards. There are countries which have managed globalization well and have found ways to make it work.

This illuminating documentary - featuring one of the great minds of the twentieth century - is ultimately a message of hope.

An exhibition of Japanese woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e or “pictures of the floating world”, one of the most important genres of art of the Tokugawa period (1603–1867) in Japan. 

This online exhibition is on view from 26th April to 9 Mary 2021.

About the exhibition

Ukiyo-e were woodblock prints that depicted aspects of the pleasure quarters (euphemistically called the “floating world”) of Edo (modern Tokyo) and other urban centres. Common subjects included famous courtesans and prostitutes, kabuki actors and well-known scenes from kabuki plays, and erotica. The pleasure quarters, or yukaku, were popular gathering places for the chonin, or urban working class. 

Ukiyo-e developed in the city of Edo during the Tokugawa or Edo Period. These two names refer to the relatively peaceful 250 years during which the Tokugawa shoguns ruled Japan and made Edo the shogunate seat of power. The social hierarchy of the day, officially established by shogun rulers, placed the merchants, the wealthiest segment of the population, at the lower end of the scale. With their political power effectively removed, the merchant class turned to art and culture as arenas in which they could participate on an equal basis with the elite upper classes (warriors, farmers, and artisans). It was the collaboration among the merchants, artists, publishers, and townspeople of Edo that gave ukiyo-e its unique voice. 

Ukiyo-e also includes paintings done by brush but in general refer to Japanese woodblock prints. The techniques used in woodblock printing were imported from China and used for printing Buddhist scriptures and their illustrations. Beginning in the 1660s, artists began to use the technique for single-sheet, stand-alone prints, rather than just text illustrations. The artist Hishikawa Moronobu (1618-1694) was the first to make a single-sheet print, triggering rapid progress in woodblock printing.

Early ukiyo-e were referred to as sumizuri-e (black ink prints) and were printed on washi paper with sumi (black ink). People began to want prints with colour so tan, a pigment made from sulfur and mercury, was used to paint colours onto the prints. These were called tan-e. In the eighteenth century, these were joined by beni-e, which used a pigment extracted from safflowers, and urushi-e, which used black lacquer.

By the mid-eighteenth century, artisans were able to make up two- and three-color prints. The appearance of the benizuri-e was a major breakthrough. Following on from benizuri-e, Suzuki Harunobu (1725-1770) mastered a process that accommodated an array of colours. The resultant prints were called nishiki-e or “brocade pictures”.

Although nishiki-e were initially quite expensive, the price soon dropped until they cost roughly the same as a bowl of noodles. Making ukiyo-e is a collaborative process. First, the publisher commissions a painter to create the original design, called a hanshita-e, by painting it on paper with black ink. After the painting was passed by the censors, it was pasted onto a block of wood and carved by the carver, and finally, printed by the printer.

At the time, the publisher played an extremely important role. One renowned publisher, Tsutaya Jūzaburō (1750-1797) discovered and employed such talented painters as Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806), Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), and Tōshūsai Sharaku (active years 1794-1795). Ukiyo-e were sold by special shops called ezōshiya, or by street hawkers or peddlers who handed them over to customers rolled up in cylindrical form, similar to the way in which posters are sold today.

Ukiyo-e made popular souvenirs of Edo as they were not heavy or bulky. They were not unseated from their position of popularity until the invention of photography in the nineteenth century.

Speakers: Dr. Sharad Baviskar, Assistant Professor, Centre for French and Francophone Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Shri Dilip Mandal, former Managing Editor, India Today Hindi magazine; Prof. Y.S. Alone, Professor, School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Dr Meena Kandasami, poet, writer and activist; and Prof. Uma Chakravarti, distinguished Feminist Historian who taught at Miranda House, University of Delhi

Moderator: Suhas Borker

(Collaboration: Maharashtra Sanskritik ani Rannaniti Adhayana Samiti; and Working Group on Alternative Strategies)