Hyderabad Conference: The Imagination of Politics and the Politics of the Imagination

Sunday, February 22, 2009

5:00
Plenary Session: Introductory remarks and welcome address by Vice-Chancellor, University of Hyderabad, and Director, Einstein Forum, Berlin.

Setting the theme of the conference:

The Indian Non-Nation: Imagining With Tagore - Partha Chatterjee.

The King Who Fell in Love with Ms. Imagination: Bhavana-purusottama of Ratnakheta Srinivasa Diksita - David Shulman.

Chair: Jyotirmaya Sharma

Excursion to the Charminar. Dinner and illustrated talk on the history and monuments of Hyderabad by Mr. Narendra Luther, historian, followed by dinner hosted by Mr. Zahid Ali Khan.

Monday, February 23

10:00 - 11:30
Imagination: The Moral and the Political - Mrinal Miri

Memory, Imagination and Fantasy: The Politics of Language and the Language of Politics -- Ganesh Devy.

Memory and Imagination: From personal experience to the public staging of the past -- Aleida Assmann

Chair : Susan Neiman

Lunch: Taj Deccan
Afternoon: Excursion to Kutub Shahi tombs and the Golkonda Fort.

Dinner hosted by Dr. K. Anji Reddy and the Naandi Foundation

Tuesday, February 24

10:00 - 1:15
Cultures of Imagination and the Political in Modern India -- Rakesh Pandey.

Imagining Incommensurables: The Indian Nation and the Hindu Rashtra - Jyotirmaya Sharma.

The Imaginary Side of the King's Power in Kautilya's Arthashastra - Charles Malamoud

Chair: Yigal Bronner

Lunch: Taj Deccan

Vilasininatyam performance by Srimati Purvadhanashri followed by dinner hosted by Mr. K.T. Mahi, Chairman, Sreenidhi Institutions.

Wednesday, February 25

10:00 - 1:15

Political Imagination in Ancient Egypt - Jan Assmann.

Imagination: Limited, Unlimited: Love on the Net -- Eva Illouz.

Imagining a Region: Kerala in Medieval Literature and Historiography -- Kesavan Veluthat

Chair: David Shulman


Lunch: Taj Deccan
Afternoon: Shopping & tour of the old city.

Dinner hosted by Rekha & Prshant Lahoti, Kalakriti Art Gallery

Thursday, February 26

Excursion to Vemulvada

Friday, February 27

9:30 am

Pregnant with the Future: Science in the Political Imagination -- Lorraine Daston.

Imagining and Unimagining the Political in Bilhana's Vikramankadevacarita - Yigal Bronner.

Imagining the metropolis on the Islamic periphery: commerce, scholarship and architecture in 15thc Bidar and Timbuktu - Richard Eaton.

Chair: Susan Neiman and David Shulman


Lunch at the University of Hyderabad.