resources to Stanford both in person and virtually. We collaborated with units from departments across campus such as the Stanford Arts Institute, Humanities Center, Freeman Spogli Institute, and the Walter Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, among others. We started this annual report to keep you abreast of our endeavors in the Center. In the process, we built a collaborative, interdisciplinary community of scholars that has enriched the University and beyond.
Director’s Note Dear CSA friends, As I step down as faculty director of CSA, I am grateful for your support and friendship over the past four years. It has been a tremendous honor and joy to serve in this role, and one that I will treasure for years to come. It has been truly gratifying to watch the Center evolve into a dynamic hub of intellectual activity on campus. Our programs aim to cultivate a deep and textured understanding of the rich and diverse regions of South Asia, including its history, its cultures, its politics, and its arts. To that end, we made astonishing progress in making CSA a highly visible facet of intellectual life at Stanford. We provided forums for students and faculty to convene and bring their research expertise to a wider community. We supported a range of research projects and fostered community engagement through travel grants, internships, research fellowships, conferences, and lecture series. We started numerous outreach initiatives, including our Alumni Spotlight, Lunch, Learn, Lead professionalization series, and the Arts and Justice series, supported by the Kohler Fund, that brought invaluable perspectives and
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The past year has left an indelible mark on us all; it has strained us to the limit. The pandemic curtailed our ability to convene in person, but it also opened up new opportunities by bringing together distant speakers and audiences via Zoom programs, panels, and events. The pages that follow will provide a glimpse into the extraordinary productivity, creativity and dynamism of our colleagues and students over the past year. We hope to continue to draw inspiration from lessons learned at this inflection point in time. As we emerge from the pandemic to convene again in person, we are grateful to our medical community, to our University leadership, and most of all to friends and colleagues, for your unwavering commitment, resilience, and cheer during these challenging times. I wish Anna Bigelow, associate professor of Religious Studies, best wishes in her role as incoming faculty director of CSA. I have no doubt that under Anna’s able leadership, CSA will soar to ever greater heights. Please join me in extending a warm and heartfelt welcome to Anna. Sincerely, Jisha Menon, Faculty Director (2017 - 2021) Associate Professor, Theater and Performance Studies and by courtesy, Comparative Literature FORTHCOMING BOOK Brutal Beauty: Aesthetics and Aspiration in Urban India (Northwestern University Press, 2021) Photo Credit: Michael Byun; Background Photo Credit: Byron Gray (Cattle egret in Gorai, Mumbai, India, 2020)
