Conferences & Workshops in Pakistan 2015-2016

The City in South Asia Conference
Conference Organized by: CAORC at the Department of Architecture and Planning, NED University, Karachi, Pakistan
January 3-6, 2016
The workshop encouraged a broader discussion on the life worlds of the poor in urban South Asia, specifically on how working class men and women experience the economically uncertain urban milieu. Rather than concentrating on perceived failures of the South Asian mega-city—whether in terms of infrastructure, governance, or economic development—the papers emphasized seeing the emerging fabric of urban South Asia as the result of ordinary peoples’ sustained productive deployment of sensibilities, practices, efforts, and collective formations.  The workshop presentations sensitized the audience to the changing cultural, political and social milieu of Karachi, Dhaka, Colombo, Mumbai, Chennai, Lahore, and other cities. Further, it addressed how issues of gender, caste, religious and ethnic difference, and sexuality are pivotal to understanding contemporary urban lifeworlds in South Asia.

State, Society and Democracy in the Postcolony Conference
Conference Organized by: Mashal Saif (Clemson University) and funded by CAORC at Lahore University of Management and Sciences (LUMS), Lahore, Pakistan
August 5-6, 2016
This conference focused on the impact of neoliberalism on state, society and democracy in the postcolonial world. Most papers focused on Pakistan but several also examined other parts of the Global South, particularly other regions in the Indian subcontinent. There were more than a hundred attendees in addition to the almost forty presenters. A very rich and innovative set of papers was presented by a diverse group of scholars. The scholars ranged from professors in the United States to graduate students from all over the world. The conference also had a high number of local Pakistan-based scholars present their work.
A defining feature of the conference was its focus on the state and society in South Asia through Foucauldian lenses. Examinations of everyday citizens’ engagements, imaginations and negotiations with state in South Asian are an emerging trend to which the conference contributed. Pakistan is often peripheral to other such examinations of the South Asian state. In contrast to this dominant trend, the conference situated Pakistan at the heart of its study while also placing it in conversation with its South Asian neighbors, particularly India.
The conference was very well received and covered by numerous media. See: http://tribune.com.pk/story/1157252/rethinking-state-redefine-province-c...
http://tribune.com.pk/story/1156663/rights-vs-duties-poor-rarely-get-rig...
http://tribune.com.pk/story/1156659/security-sectarianism-violence-publi...

Cinema and Transnationalism in Pakistan and South Asia: Regional Histories
Conference Organized by: Esha Niyogi De (UCLA) and funded by CAORC at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Lahore, Pakistan
September 1-2, 2016
This two-day-long event—co-organized by Dr. Esha Niyogi De (UCLA) and Dr. Ali Khan (LUMS) and hosted by the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at LUMS—brought to Pakistan the South Asian Regional Media Studies Network (SARMSNet).  This cross-border initiative fostered collaborative scholarship on the histories of cinema and media shared by Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Considering the histories of cinema in Pakistan and the Subcontinent, a number of presentations examined the regional travels of images, artists, and industrial resources, and how traditions and their cultural influences intertwine with one another.  While participants were deeply concerned with the politics of nation, ethnicity, and gender born of specific geopolitical conditions in the Subcontinent, they explored the role film and media networks have also played in destabilizing divisive identities.  Some papers studied how popular cinemas illuminate everyday practices of same-sex friendship and cross-ethnic solidarity, whereas some others discussed gendered imaginations of justice and human rights in films on conflict, war, and terror.  Historically specific readings of Pakistani Cinema (Urdu, Punjabi) were complemented by analyses of transregional flows, which emphasized the historical linkage between film industries and urban landscapes across South Asia. It brought together leading academics who work on Pakistan, including:
• Dr. Rahat Imran, Assistant Professor, Institute of Social & Cultural Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore,
• Dr. Imran Munir, Assistant Professor, Institute of Social & Cultural Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore,
• Dr. Naveen Zehra Minai, Assistant Professor, Institute of Business Administration, Karachi,
• Dr. Tariq Rahman, HEC Distinguished National Professor Emeritus & Dean, School of Education, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore,
• Dr. Ali Khan, Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS, Lahore,
• Dr. Sadaf Ahmad, Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS, Lahore,
• Dr. Nida Kirmani, Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS, Lahore,
• Dr. Elora Halim Chowdhury, Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston,
• Dr. Kamran Asdar Ali - Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology; and Director, South Asia Institute, University of Texas, Austin,
• Dr. Joel Gordon, Professor, Department of History, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville,
• Dr. Karen Leonard, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California at Irvine, Irvine,
• Dr. Sanaa Riaz, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, State University of Colorado at Denver,
• Dr. Esha Niyogi De, Faculty, Department of English, UCLA,
• Dr. Nasreen Rehman, Faculty, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Cambridge University
Along with those who were present virtually through Skype
• Iftikhar Dadi - Associate Professor, Departments of History of Art and Art, Cornell University, Ithaca,
• Dr. Madhuja Mukheerji, Associate Professor, Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University, India
• Dr. Abhijit Roy, Associate Professor, Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University, India