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Call For Papers: Dalit Agendas—Emancipation, Citizenship, & Empowerment
October 2, 2007, Volume 54, No. 6

The Center for the Advanced Study of India and the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania will hold a major conference on critical issues relating to Dalit Studies, on December 4-6, 2008 in Philadelphia to bring together academics and intellectuals from both within and outside of formal academic institutions, including the many organic intellectuals who have kept India’s Dalit movement alive by following Dr. Ambedkar’s injunction to “educate, organize, and agitate.”

The purpose of the conference will be to evaluate strategies for ensuring that Dalit agendas are recognized by and incorporated into mainstream academic dialogue and to assess the various political and social agendas, both contemporary and historic, that have sought to improve the lives of Dalits.

These include Dalit political formations; print media and literary movements; colonial and postcolonial governmental practices and policies; initiatives for social and economic empowerment; feminist struggles; critiques of nationalist and radical movements; and diasporic activism. 

The conference will result in the production of an edited volume that will bring various Dalit agendas into dialogue and examine the conditions and contradictions of Dalit social mobility in contemporary India.  Proposals from all disciplinary, methodological, and ideological perspectives are welcome.  Applications are welcome from independent scholars, postgraduate students, and those working within and outside of formal academic institutions. 

Further information can be found on the conference website: http://casi.ssc.upenn.edu. The author of each paper proposal accepted for participation in the conference will receive an honorarium of $500 to defray the costs of any additional research that will be conducted for the paper. Travel (international or domestic, as needed) to and from Philadelphia, meals, and accommodation will be covered for all conference participants, and each contributor whose paper is accepted for publication in the edited volume will receive an additional honorarium of $500 following the final submission of their paper. 

Deadline for paper proposals:  November 1, 2007. Applications should include: (1) a three-page description of the research to be presented at the conference and its place within your larger work and goals (2) a two-page C.V.

Send to Dr. Ramnarayan S. Rawat, Department of South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania,  820 Williams Hall, 255 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-2653. Email: rawat@sas.upenn.edu

Almanac - October 2, 2007, Volume 54, No. 6