Spring Term 2024

FACT & FICTION

BEING PAKISTANI, BECOMING PAKISTANI

Wednesday, 12 June 2024 | 3pm UK | 7pm Pakistan

ONLINE

A panel discussion on a recently published book that looks at citizenship and belonging in Pakistan in its historical and contemporary contexts.

SPEAKERS: Dr Zaib un Nisa Aziz (@ZaibunNisaAziz) is Assistant Professor in History at the University of South Florida in Tampa, and a historian of global and imperial history of the British Empire and South Asia; Dr Zehra Hashmi is Assistant Professor in the History & Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania (@pennsas), and is currently engaged in a historical ethnography of Pakistan's national identity database; Tahir Kamran is Professor & Head of the Department of Liberal Arts at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore (@BNULahore) with research interests in democracy, governance & religious politics in Pakistan; Dr Ali Usman Qasmi (@AU_Qasmi) is Associate Professor in History at Lahore University of Management Sciences, and author of Qaum, Mulk, Saltanat: Citizenship and National Belonging in Pakistan (2023) -- the book being discussed at this event.

CHAIR: Dr Nilanjan Sarkar (@SAsiaLSE) is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

THE INDIAN ELECTION & THE FUTURE OF PROGRESSIVE POLITICS

Tuesday, 11 June 2024 | 6.30pm UK |11pm India

HYBRID

Sumeet Valrani Theatre, Centre Building, LSE, Houghton Street, WC2

A panel discussion on a recently concluded national elections in India.

SPEAKERS: Mukulika Banerjee (@MukulikaB) is Professor of Anthropology at LSE, and author of Why India Votes? (2014) and Cultivating Democracy: Politics & Citizenship in Agrarian India (2021); Christophe Jaffrelot (@jaffrelotc; via Zoom) is Research Director at Centre de recherches internationales de Sciences Po in Paris, Avantha Chair & Professor at King's College London, and an expert on Indian politics and sociology; Sanjay Kumar (@sanjaycsds) is Professor & Co-Director of Lokniti at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi, specialising in using survey methods to understand electoral politics in India.

MODERATOR: Dr Robin Archer is Convenor of The Ralph Miliband Programme (@RMilibandLSE) and Associate Professor in Political Sociology at LSE.

CHAIR: Alnoor Bhimani (@AlnoorBhimani) is Director, LSE South Asia Centre, and Professor of Management Accounting at LSE.

This event is in collaboration with The Ralph Miliband Programme at LSE.

Please click here to watch a recording of this event.

Image © Element5Digital, 2018, Unsplash.

TOUGH TALK 6

DOES ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ENHANCE OR IMPEDE SPIRITUALITY?

Wednesday, 5 June 2024 | 3pm UK

ONLINE

How do AI advances contribute to spiritual explorations and impact individuals’ relationships with God? Can and should AI systems affect divine experiences? Does AI limit or expand notions of the sacred and can it become a substitute for established ideals of human spirituality?

SPEAKERS: Dr Signe M. Cohen (@signecohen) is Associate Professor of South Asian Religions at the University of Missouri, and has published on South Asian religious texts, and on robots, mechanical beings & automatons in classical India; Dr Muhammad U. Faruque (@MUFaruque1989) is Inayat & Ishrat Malik Assistant Professor and a Taft Center Fellow at the University of Cincinnati, and is currently researching on Artifical Intelligence & the ethical challenges of Information Technology; Dr Jenna Supp-Montgomerie (@SuppMontgomerie) is Associate Professor in Religious Studies and Communication Studies at the University of Iowa, and has published on the entangled relationships of religion & infrastructure amidst technological change in everyday life.

CHAIR: Alnoor Bhimani (@AlnoorBhimani) is Director, LSE South Asia Centre, and Professor of Management Accounting at LSE.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

Image © 'Fists in the Air', PikPng.

FAITH, FINANCE & ETHICS IN SOUTH ASIA: Are they Connected?

Wednesday, 29 May 2024 | 3pm UK

ONLINE

Financial crises have been associated with institutionalised moral failures, so economic activities perhaps ought not to be separated from faith-based moral rules grounded in their regulatory frameworks? Is there a link between religion and financial well-being, and does faith influence financial investment and economic decisions? Or are finance and faith best left independent of one another?

SPEAKERS: Dr Adeel Malik (@AdeelMalikOx) is Global Fellow in the Economies of Muslim Societies & Associate Professor in the Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford; Atul Shah (@atulkshah) is Professor and Visiting Lecturer in the School of Policy & Global Affairs, City, University of London, with research interests & publications in cultural inclusion & ethical finance.

CHAIR: Alnoor Bhimani (@AlnoorBhimani) is Director, LSE South Asia Centre, and Professor of Management Accounting at LSE.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

BANGLADESH: Radical Politics, Extremism and the Way Forward

Wednesday, 15 May | 3pm UK / 8pm Dhaka

ONLINE

A panel discussion drawing upon the research of Charles Wallace Bangladesh Trust Visiting Fellow Dr Shafi Mostofa on the trajectories of existing political extremism (and emerging groups) in Bangladesh, and possible ways forward for the state to confront, control and overcome this issue.

SPEAKERS: Barrister Tania Amir is a rights activist, Advocate in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, and partner in Amir & Amir Law Associates in Dhaka, being called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1990; Dr Jasmin Lorch (@IDOS_research) is a political scientist and currently Senior Researcher in a project on 'Transformation of Political (Dis)order' at the German Institute of Development & Sustainability (IDOS) in Bonn, and has published on terrorism and female jihadism in Bangladesh; Dr Shafi Mostofa (@ShafiMostofa) is Associate Professor in World Religions & Culture at the University of Dhaka, was until recently Charles Wallace Visiting Fellow at the LSE South Asia Centre, and has published extensively in radical extremism and jihadism in Bangladesh; Ali Riaz is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Politics & Government, Illinois State University, and an expert on political Islam and violent extremism in South Asia, especially Bangladesh.

DISCUSSANT: Dr Geoffrey Macdonald (@geoffreymacdon) is Senior Advisor on Asia/Bangladesh at the International Republican Institute, and Visiting Expert on South Asia at the United States Institute of Peace, both in Washington DC.

CHAIR: Dr Nilanjan Sarkar (@SAsiaLSE) is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre.