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NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR SOUTH ASIA STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
KHABAR FALL 2013
S OUTH A SIA
AT
B ERKELEY : T HE V ERTICAL S LICE
A NEW CHANCELLOR, NEW PROGRAMS, AND THE RENEWED PROMISE OF THE “MULTIVERSITY” by CSAS Chair, Lawrence Cohen
Lawrence Cohen is Professor of Anthropology and South & Southeast Asian Studies, Sarah Kailath Chair of India Studies, and Chair of the Center for South Asia Studies. His primary field is the critical study of medicine, health, and the body. His early work Lawrence Cohen examined debates over old age and the moral condition of the elderly in 19th & 20th century India, with a focus on medicine. That work led to the books No Aging in India: Alzheimer's, the Bad Family, and Other Modern Things and the edited collection Thinking about Dementia. His subsequent research, again based in north India, focused on contemporary Ayurveda, on popular cinema, on AIDS and the remaking of sexuality, and on the relations between sex, gender, politics, and ideas of "backwardness." He went on to write extensively on the politics and regulation of kidney transplantation in India. Professor Cohen's current research is on biometric governance: specifically on the Unique Identification Authority of India, its "Aadhaar" card, and the contested promise of reorganizing welfare, banking, and the life of the poor through the "de-duplication" of India itself.
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erkeley anthropologist Laura Nader famously described an approach to the study of societies that was a “vertical slice”: one analyzed events from the base of the society—for the university, this might be the students who make Berkeley what it is, along with an immensely hard-working support staff — to its pinnacle. From 2012 to 2014, any account of South Asia at Berkeley demands a vertical slice. From a new University Chancellor who is one of the leading South Asia scholars worldwide, to new faculty across the disciplines, to changes within administrative staff, to the many hundreds of new students across the disciplines and professional schools involved in research in South Asia, these have been two years of phenomenal growth at every level in our capacity as one of the leading
sites globally for South Asia research. Nepal, and Sri Lanka, and to create reIt has been a year and a half since I search projects, teaching programs, and became Director of the Center for South institutional partnerships taking us far Asia Studies (CSAS). It was a challengbeyond the core disciplines in the sciing time to accept an appointment: in a ences and humanities and embracing all kind of perfect storm, both the ability of of the university’s technical and profesthe federal government to sustain Amerisional expertise: the breadth of Berkeley can excellence in interregional research that former Chancellor Clark Kerr faand the resources of the state government mously once called the “multi-versity.” to sustain the university system were There is no way that in the few paraimperiled. Major national scholarships graphs I have here that I can represent enabling graduate student research in all of the CSAS’s diverse activities or the region had been cut or shut down thank even a fraction of the donors, colentirely. The important U.S.-wide instileagues, students, and communities that tutions promoting South Asia focused have enabled us not only to weather unscholarship—the American Institutes for certain times India Studies, Pakistan Studies, Sri Lanka but to thrive Studies, and Bangladesh Studies—were within them. experiencing similar fiscal challenges. I do want The CSAS, like area research centers to extend around the country, thus found itself at my personal a crossroads. Was the task to consolidate gratitude both and protect existing programs through to our donors judicious cutting and stewardship? Or, and to my given the ever expanding importance talented colof South Asia and its diasporas in rapid leagues and global economic and cultural change, especially was it possible to create new programs past Center and projects to address these transformaDirectors, Chancellor Nicholas Dirks & tions, meet their challenges, and rethink and to rehis partner, Janaki Bakhle the lessons and am pleased to have moved to Berkeley for many reasons, demands of hisone of the most important of which is its long tradition tory, culture, and religious of excellence in South Asian Studies. I look forward to and ethical being part of and helping to support some of the activities commitment? of the Center, as it continues its work of connecting faculty I am deand students with the South Asia region, facilitating lighted to report scholarly exchanges with specialists and public figures that the CSAS alike, sponsoring lectures and conferences by distinguished has managed, academic, governmental, and business leaders, supporting due to the students with grants for language study, research, and imagination and internships, and ensuring the centrality of South support of its many constituencies—its Asia to the global engagement of the University. students, community, faculty, — UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks administrators, and all those committed to the importance of South port on a few of the milestones of Asia for the 21st-century university—to South Asia at Berkeley that have do both: that is, both to sustain and proallowed us to create this crucial extect our university’s famed preeminence panded role despite continued national in South Asian language, literature, and and global economic uncertainty. history and our record of collaborative Over the semesters that I have research with institutions and colleagues been CSAS Director, the University across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, of California has attracted many of the
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