96.

Lecture on
"The Life Sciences, Biosecurity, & Dual-Use Research."

by
Prof. Brian Rappert
Associate Professor of Science, Technology and Public Affairs,
Department of Sociology and Philosophy, University of Exeter, U.K

22nd November, 2007, Thursday, 4:00 p.m. Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

Abstract

In the last few years, particularly since 11 September 2001, international concerns about the threats posed by biological weapons have increased significantly. With this has come an expansion of activities where the wisdom of applying security controls is being considered.  With the potential often accorded to biotechnology research to transform health and agriculture have come questions whether it might aid the deliberate spread of disease. Traditional concerns about laboratory biosafety are being complemented by growing attention to ‘biosecurity’.  As part of this, questions are being asked today regarding what novel threats might stem from life science research, how scientists can contribute to national defense, and whether some lines of investigation are too contentious to pursue.

There are two aims to this Seminar / interactive discussion: one, to inform participants about current ‘biosecurity’ debates and second, to generate interactive discussion about the merits of proposed policy responses.  The topics covered will include a general background on biosecurity, the communication of research, its funding, the oversight of experiments, and the responsibilities of scientists and others. Examples of various national and international measures currently be implemented or considered will be included to generate discussion.

About the Speaker

Brian Rappert  is an Associate Professor of Science, Technology and Public Affairs in the Department of Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Exeter, UK. His long term interest has been the examination of how choices can and are made about the adoption and regulation of security-related technologies; this particularly in conditions of uncertainty and disagreement.  His book Controlling the Weapons of War: Politics, Persuasion, and the Prohibition of Inhumanity (Routledge, 2006) is an attempt to question and reframe current preoccupations in the field of arms control.  His forthcoming book Biotechnology, Security and the Search for Limits: An Inquiry into Research and Methods (Palgrave, 2007) considers the prospects and problems with introducing security-inspired controls to prevent the destructive use of biotechnology research.

95.

Lecture on
"Pluralism in the Indian University."

by
Dr. Ramachandra Guha

29 October 2007, Monday, 4:00 p.m., Choksi Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

About the Speaker

Dr. Ramachandra Guha is an Indian social, environmental and cricket historian, academician and biographer. He is also a columnist for the newspapers The Hindu and The Telegraph and the news magazine Outlook.

Born in Dehra Dun in 1958, Guha studied at The Doon School and St. Stephen's College, Delhi. He graduated in Economics with a BA in 1977 and then an MA from the Delhi School of Economics, and did his PhD in Sociology at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, with a dissertation on the social history of forestry in Uttaranchal, that focused on the Chipko movement. It was later published as The Unquiet Woods. Between 1985 and 2000, he held various academic positions in India, Europe and North America, including the University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, Stanford University, Oslo University, and later at the Indian Institute of Science.

Since then, he moved to Bangalore, and began writing full time. He served as Sundararajan Visiting Chair, in the Humanities at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 2003.

He is the author of a historical text of independent India tiled " India After Gandhi" that has been published by Macmillan and HarperCollins in 2007.

94.

Lecture on
“Liberty, Justice, and Dignity for All”

by
Dr. Robert W. Fuller
Former President
Oberlin College, USA

Author of "All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity."

26 October 2007, Friday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

Abstract:

A number of countries have done rather well when it comes to Liberty. But not so many have been successful at establishing Justice. All men may be created equal but they certainly do not have equal opportunities to better themselves. For instance, in the USA, some 20 % are imprisoned in intractable poverty. To deliver on Jefferson's promise of "Liberty and Justice for all" a stepping-stone must be inserted between Liberty and Justice and the name of that stone is "Dignity." An alternative polity, centered on Dignity can finally make good on the promise of democracy. Which nation will be the first to create a dignitarian society is an open question, but several countries have a good shot at it. None more so than India. We shall discuss the underlying reasons for this possibility.

93..

Lecture on
"Michel Foucault and Contemporary Social Science Research."

by
Prof. P. M. Rajan Gurukkal
Director, School of Social Sciences
Mahatma Gandhi University
Kottayam, Kerala

18 October 2007, Thursday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

92.

Lecture on
"Speaking with Suffering: The Science / Art of Healing Minds ".

by
Dr. Anup Kumar Dhar
Associate Fellow
Centre for Study of Culture and Society
Bangalore

5 October 2007, Friday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

Abstract:

Taking off from a counter-history of the given understanding of Western Psychiatry, this talk will suggest an understanding of Mental Health Science in 'Indian' spaces in terms of 'paradigms' (and not in terms of an 'increasing formalization of knowledge') marked by conflicting, at times, incommensurable philosophies of mind-suffering-care-healing.

About Speaker:

Dr. Anup Kumar Dhar is a medical doctor who did his PhD in the Department of Philosophy, Jadavpur University, on Lacanian Psychoanalysis and Feminist Epistemology. He works at the interstices of Philosophy of Science, History of Science, and Postcolonial Theory.

91.

Lecture on
"Jahaji Music: Indian-Carubbeab Conversation?".

by

Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana
Director and Senior Fellow
Centre for the Study of Culture and Society
Bangalore

30th August 2007, Thursday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

ABSTRACT

This talk will be based on Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana's recent book, Mobilizing India: Women, Music and Migration between India and Trinidad. While her research was about Trinidad, it was necessarily also about how to think 'India' differently. Seeing familiar histories of modernity in India through the lens of forgotten and delegitimised "Indians" who were taken as indentured labour to the Caribbean in colonial times might prompt us to re-imagine modern cultural identities in India. Her attempt was to render strange an all too familiar 'Indian' set of preoccupations – about nationalism, about Hindus and Muslims, caste and culture, femininity and the public sphere - by locating them in a geographically distant place where they have taken on altogether different significations even while they continue to call themselves "Indian".

The talk will be followed by screening 30 mins of an extract from the documentary film Jahaji Music: India in the Caribbean (Surabhi Sharma, 2007) that she helped conceptualize and which relates to the issues she will raise in her presentation.

90.

Three day Workshop on

Film Appreciation

conducted by

Prof. Arun Gupta
Senior Faculty
Department of Film & Video
National Institute of Design (NID)
Ahmedabad

89.

Lecture on
"The modernist movement in the Indian Literature".

by

Prof. U. R. Ananthamurthy
Jnanpith Awardee
Sundararajan Visiting Professor
Centre for Contemporary Studies
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

18th April 2007, Thursday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

88.

Book Release Function
"VIKRAM SARABHAI - a life"
Author: AMRITA SHAH

Prof. P. Balaram, Director, Indian Institute of Science,
will preside over the function

Book Release by
Dr. K. Kasturirangan
Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) and
Director, National Institute of Advanced Studies
Bangalore


The Author will read some excerpts from the book, especially those passages pertaining to Sarabhai's association with the Indian Institute of Science

16th April 2007, Monday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

87.

Lecture on
"The Poetry of Adiga".

by

Prof. U. R. Ananthamurthy
Jnanpith Awardee
Sundararajan Visiting Professor
Centre for Contemporary Studies
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

30th March 2007, Friday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

86.

Lecture on
"Rights-Based Development: Political Agency and Conflict Resolution, Examples from Yemen, Indonesia and Bangladesh".

by

Dr. Sheena Crawford
CR2 Social Development
Tigh Alir, 11 Strath
Gairloch, Ross-shire
United Kingdom

29th March 2007, Thursday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

85.

Lecture on
"W. B. Yeats and India".

by

Prof. U. R. Ananthamurthy
Jnanpith Awardee
Sundararajan Visiting Professor
Centre for Contemporary Studies
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

15th March 2007, Thursday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

84.

Lecture on
“Facing Two Ways: The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, American Technical Assistance and the Indian Computing Community, 1961-1980”

by
Prof. Ross Bassett
History of Science and Technology
University of North Carolina, USA

9th March, 2007, Friday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

83.

Lecture on
"Uganda in the 1960s: the rise and fall of a nascent African democracy"

by
Prof. Ronald Francis Clarke
Honorary Senior Feloow
Insitute for Development Policy and Management
University of Manchester, UK

6th February, 2007, Tuesday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

82.

Lecture on
"The Public Space and the Intellectual Debates in Contemporary China"

by

Prof. Wang Hui
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

2nd February, 2007, Friday, 4:00 p.m.,Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

81

Three day International Workshop on

Rethinking the Intellectual Foundations of the 21st Century- From Local Universalism to Global Contextualism

during 30 January to 1 February, 2007

30th January, 2007 - series of lectures at M. R. C. Auditorium, Indian Institute of Science (open for public)

31 January - 1 February - meeting (invitees only)

80.

Lecture on
"Politics and Fiction in the 1930s in England and its relevance for us in India today".

by

Prof. U. R. Ananthamurthy
Jnanpith Awardee
Sundararajan Visiting Professor
Centre for Contemporary Studies
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

22nd January 2007, Monday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

79.

Lecture on
"Homo juridicus: On the Anthropological Function of Law"

by
Prof. Alain Supiot
Professor of Law
University of Nantes &
Senior member, Institut Universitaire de France
France

18th January 2007, Thursday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

78.

Lecture on
"Reflections on Five decades of my Writing: with some selected readings".

by

Prof. U. R. Ananthamurthy
Jnanpith Awardee
Sundararajan Visiting Professor
Centre for Contemporary Studies
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

17th January 2007, Wednesday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

77.

Workshop on
"The Visibility of Cultures:
Identity, contact and circulation in the Indian Ocean"

Summary

organized by
The University of the Witwaterstrand and the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society
co-hosted by the Centre for Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

during 13-14, January 2007 at JNC Lecture Hall (on IISc Campus), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

76.

Lecture on
"A Thousand Years of Kannada Language and Literature from a Practitioner’s view"

by

Prof. U. R. Ananthamurthy
Jnanpith Awardee
Sundararajan Visiting Professor
Centre for Contemporary Studies
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

11th January 2007, Thursday, 4:00 p.m., Centre for Contemporary Studies, Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012

75.

Public Lecture on
"The Differences Between Natural and Social Science: Implications of Fallibility"

by
Mr. George Soros

Author of the book

The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of The War on Terror

[In this talk Mr. Soros will explain his disagreement with Karl Popper's doctrine of the unity of method]

Prof. P. Balaram, Director, IISc will preside

5th January 2007, Friday, 4:00 p.m., Faculty Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012