Past activities

Here you can find some past activities of the Institute of Indian Studies:

2023

• Humour is Serious Business!
  12th Coffee Break Conference on Irony, Sarcasm and other techniques for mobilising religious, cultural and epistemic capital.
  Program
  More info on Coffee Break Network.

• Lecture by Peter Berger on “Subaltern Sovereigns: Rituals of Rule and Regeneration in Highland Odisha, India"
  at the Institute for Asian and Transcultural Studies, Institute of Anthropology, University of Heidelberg.

• Exhibition:
  23 June 2023: Opening of the exhibition on "Related Beings" at the Frobenius Institute (Frankfurt/M) as part of the summer symposium 2023. The exhibition deals with the entanglements between humans, plants (esp. cereals) and animals and shows photographs (and objects) made by Peter Berger and René Cappers.
• Between March and June 2023 Peter Berger and René Cappers are Mercator Visiting Professors at the Frobenius Institute (Frankfurt/M). Their stay at the FI is part of the research collaboration on millets in India.
• New book by Peter Berger available in Open Access!
  Berger, Peter. Subaltern Sovereigns: Rituals of Rule and Regeneration in Highland Odisha, India, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110458831
  Link: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110458831/html
• The University of Groningen, the Frobenius Institute (Frankfurt), and the Utkal University (Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India) have organized an international workshop on Cereal Culture in Odisha on 10 February 2023 (for details of the program see the Frobenius Institute website). Ongoing research was discussed, as well as the status quo of the 2023 UN International Year of Millets and related activities in Odisha. One highlight was also the inauguration of the new website of the cooperative research project on Cereal Cultures: https://cerealcultures.wordpress.com/

2022

• On 16 June 2022, University College Groningen, Centre for Religion, Conflict and Globalization, the Institute for Indian Studies (Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies) together with SiB-Groningen hosted a discussion evening on the topic of 'Identity Politics, Populism, and the Rise of Illiberal Democracies'. For more information see: Identity Politics, Populism, and the Rise of Illiberal Democracies Discussion evening.

• 30 September & 1 October 2022, Workshop on Cereal Cultures
• 2 June 2022, together with the GSG: Screening of the movie "Avatara" by Nadav Harel and Arik Moran, including a conversation with the authors.

• 14 June 2022, together with the CRCG: Discussing and celebrating the new publication by Dr Renny Thomas, "Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disentchantment". More information
• Winter School Doing Ethnographic Fieldwork, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, 7 March 2022.

2020-2021

• Book Launch of two new/recent publications by the cultural anthropologist Peter Berger and the archaeobotanist René Cappers at the Frobenius Institute (Frankfurt/M).
• 14.- 16.10.2021 Conference “Changing patterns of patronage across South Asia from early modern through colonial contexts” organized by the Institute of Indian Studies (Prof. E. Mucciarelli) with the Centre For Comparative Studies Of Civilisations, Jagellonian University (Prof. Cezary Galewicz) and Département Etudes orientales, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Prof. Nicolas Dejenne).
  Conference website
• The Insight Development Grants from Canada Government (SSHRC) approved a 2 years grant for the project "Sanskrit Joking Cultures: Bringing Classical Indian Humor to Life Through Translation and Performance” of Prof. E. Mucciarelli and Prof. A. Sathaye (Dept. of Asian Studies, University of Vancouver).
• NWO approved a major grant proposal (Free Competition) of Dr. P. Berger and Prof. R.T.J. Cappers, project title: Salvage Crops, “Savage” People: A comparative anthropological and archaeobotanical investigation of Millet Assemblages in India
  Link to public summary
  Link to article about hte research project
• New book, co-edited by Peter Berger and Sarbeswar Sahoo from IIT Delhi, a strategic UG partner university: Godroads: Modalities of Conversion in India . Click here for a visual of the book cover and endorsements
• Winter School Performing Religion: Theory and Practice, New Delhi, 17-21 February 2020.