Panelist Search Board Request
Post your proposal ideas in order to find speakers to form a Panel, or Round Table! Please directly contact the person who has posted a search with your abstract or request to participate.
Panelist Search Board Responses
Name and Affiliation: Nive Senthilvel, Boston University
Contact: nivesen@bu.edu
Seeking: I have a Single Paper submission and would like to find corresponding Single Papers to form a Panel
Title of Panel, Round Table, or Single Paper: Becoming Aṇṇā (tr. Big Brother): The Expansion of State Power In British South India 1857-1914
Abstract: This paper details the progression of the Madras constabulary in South India from a small, barely functional institution in 1859 to a sophisticated surveillance apparatus just before the First World War. This paper argues that one of the main catalysts to this development was a desire to control “difficult” tribal populations who lived in remote and densely forested areas, the former through the collection of detailed anthropometric information (fingerprints, photographs, and various body measurements) and the latter through cartographic exploration and scientific forestry. The advent of several food shortage events and pandemics during this time period further pushed people into the State’s orbit, and relief camps and aid distribution sites also became data collection hubs, which further strengthened the surveillance capacity of the State. This paper has parallels to modern conversations about data, privacy, and state surveillance.
Name and Affiliation: John Caldwell, UNC Chapel Hill
Contact: asiaweb@email.unc.edu
Seeking: Panel
Title of Panel: Aesthetic Cosmologies: Markets, Music, and …
Abstract: Still under construction but I have a musicology paper about Cosmologies in Amir Khusrau’s writings on music, and my co-panelist Dr. Nauman Baig (Anthropology, Habib University) is preparing an abstract on the cosmologies of Markets in Karachi. We would love to have TWO more panelists who can tie their papers into this thematic question: “How do the aesthetics of various endeavours in the Humanities and/or Sciences reflect and interpret embedded cosmological narratives?” All fields are welcome! We’d love to have people working on South Asian physics, astronomy, dance, history of science, etc. Please respond ASAP as the deadline is approaching next week!
Name and Affiliation: Ratan Kumar Roy, South Asian University
Contact: rkroy@sau.int
Seeking: Speakers for a Round Table
Title of Panel: Gen Z Resistance in South Asia: Sentiments of the Youth and Political Futures Across Borders
Abstract: Across South Asia, young people are shaping new forms of protest that are emotionally charged, digitally mediated, symbolically inventive, and politically disruptive. While youth resistance has always been important in South Asian history, the present moment suggests a distinct generational shift in how dissent is articulated, circulated, and experienced. The roundtable seeks to examine Gen Z resistance as both a political phenomenon and a cultural-emotional formation. It will explore how protests across South Asia reflect shared concerns with justice, dignity, inclusion, reform, and democratic voice, while also revealing important national differences shaped by religion, class, gender, caste, ethnicity, state formation, and political history. Speakers will be invited to reflect on similarities and differences across borders, asking what connects youth protest in one context to another, and how local histories reshape the meaning of resistance. Scholars from diverse fields of social sciences, humanities, communication and political studies will reflect on a larger question: what kind of future might Gen Z resistance create for South Asian society, culture, and politics? Does this generation signal a deepening of democratic aspiration, a transformation of public culture, and a rethinking of citizenship across borders? Or does it reveal new contradictions in the region’s social and political life? By placing these questions in interdisciplinary conversation, the roundtable aims to generate a richer understanding of youth resistance as one of the defining forces shaping South Asia today.