[Reader-list] roundtable on comparitive urbansims

[Iram Ghufran]

University of Heidelberg’s Cluster of Excellence Asia and Europe in a 
Global Context,
Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi and 
the Max Mueller Bhavan, Delhi

invite you to a roundtable on

*Comparative Urbanisms*
20th October, 2010, 6 pm
Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS

The development of the humanities and social sciences has come with 
powerful specializations in terms of how space, time, and media can be 
studied and theorised. Yet, there are several issues that cross 
geographical, historical, and media borders, so that the classical 
concepts of culture based on territory, language, ethnicity and nation 
can no longer account for the intrinsic complexity of human groups and 
their relations. Indeed, today, these cultural flows and their 
entanglements have become even more evident and have been accelerated by 
new media and transport systems.

China and India, Shanghai and New Delhi, allow us to address these 
issues, especially in terms of their ambiguous similarity and 
difference. This seems particularly productive if we look at media, 
certain events, such as the Expo in Shanghai and the Commonwealth Games 
in New Delhi, as well as imaginaries and aspirations that tie people to, 
or distance them from, sites of urbanisation. In this context, we bring 
together several scholars who speak to the nature of the transcultural 
flows from the site of their respective intellectual engagements, Delhi 
and Shanghai.

Invited speakers include Christian Henriot, Marie Sander, Tina 
Schilbach, Jeffrey Wasserstrom on Shanghai and Amita Baviskar, Melissa 
Butcher, Ravi Vasudevan and Ravi Sundaram, on Delhi.

The roundtable will be followed by a reception, hosted by Sarai 
Programme, CSDS.