he following are excerpts from a conversationbetween Nathaniel Kahn and Kazi Ashraf.

Nathaniel Kahn, an emerging film-maker fromNew York, has justcompleted and releaseda documentary, MyArchitect: A Son’sJourney, on his father,the illustrious architectLouis I. Kahn. TheCapital Complex projectin Dhaka, designed byKahn, takes a prominentplace in the film.

The conversation wastaped in Philadelphia inAugust 2003, and tookplace in the light ofrecent and unwarrantedbuilding interventions in Kahn’s Complex.

Kazi Ashraf (KA): How did you as a film-maker come to realize the importance of this groupof buildings in Dhaka?

Nathaniel Kahn (NK): There are a few thingsthat come to mind. One is the importance of Lou[Kahn] and his work to the world of architecture,and also the importance of this project in the processof his work, and also, thirdly, my perception of whatLou did with the government of Bangladesh. Myfirst access to it is because I’ve been travelingaround the world seeing the places that my fatherbuilt. I saved Dhaka for last because I remember asa little boy the passion he had for this project, and as

a little boy in his office seeing the way he workedon this project for years and years, even when thewar [of 1971] was on. Lou was somebody who

believed in the abilityof architecture totransform the worldand to create a betters o c i e t y. We wouldconsider him here anidealistic person. ButI think he found inDhaka a commissionto design a center ofgovernment, reallyhis dream projectbecause it was a newcountry and he knewif he did it right and ifhe was able to get his

vision done it could change the world.

InsideDirector’s Message.........................2Faculty Profile: Jagdish Sharma......3Faculty Profile: Kazi Ashraf...........4Interview: Ackbar Abbas...............5Summer Institute..........................6Call for Papers..............................7Faculty & Student News................10Faculty Publications.....................12

See “KAHN” on page 8

Assembly Building, Dhaka, Bangladesh

photo: Chetana

Director’s Note

very time I walk to campus I pass alongside agreen hedge. The other day, as I walked along.

I was overwhelmed by the sweet familiar fragranceof pikake. Looking at the hedge, I noticed it wascovered in clusters of the fragrant, white blossoms.Pikake (jasmine) is an introduced plant from India.

According to one source, the blossom was afavorite of Princess Ka‘iulani, who named it afterher favorite bird—another South Asian import—thepeacock. Besides Hawaiian royalty, pikake was a

favorite among the kings of Afghanistan, Nepal, andPersia. In the Philippines, jasmine is called sampgui-ta and it is the national flower of that country. It isalso one of the national flowers of Indonesia. InChina, jasmine is used to flavor tea. The essence ofjasmine is used to flavor and scent a wide variety offoods and body products. In Hawai‘i, pikake is alsoused for leis: The simple white flower with itsstrong, beautiful scent symbolizes purity, simplicity,h u m i l i t y, strength, and divine hope.

Pikake, which has its orgins in South Asia, traveledacross other parts of Asia and the Pacific to Hawai‘i. Itis a flower with a fragrance that inspires different usesand it has been adopted by various cultures uniquely.It is in the spirit of the pikake that the work of theCenter for South Asian Studies takes its inspiration,where we emphasize the influence and connections ofSouth Asia to other parts of Asia and the Pacific, whilerespectfully recognizing differences. The potential tostrengthen South Asian Studies by exploring interac-tions and exchanges between Asians and the Pacificare endless, and can be very productive in developingstronger research and academic programs.

This issue of the newsletter was inspired by theorigins, adoption, and adaptations of pikake

beyond food and flavor to people—for instance,the interviews with Akbar Abbas (who was here aspart of the Hawai‘i International Film Festival[HIFF]), and the documentary filmmaker NathanielKahn. Abbas is best known for his scholarship onHongkong cinema, but his HIFFpresentation wentbeyond those boundaries to include an analysis offilms from both Hongkong and Turkey. In our con-versation, we were able to expand the geographyeven further, discussing Abbas’South Asian ances-try (traced through his maternal grandfather), andthe issues and concerns of the South Asian diaspora

to Hongkong. Likewise Kazi Ashraf’s interviewwith Nathaniel Kahn, who created a documen-tary—also part of the film festival—on the workand life of his father, the architect Louis Kahn. Theelder Kahn’s projects spanned the globe, from theUnited States to India and Bangladesh. Both AkbarAbbas and Louis Kahn (and, for that matter,Nathaniel Kahn and Kazi Ashraf) are people whoevoke the qualities and characteristics of pikake.

As the semester ends, I would like to congratulateand wish Professor Jagdish Sharma a very happyretirement. He has taught South Asian history at theUniversity for over 30 years and begins his retirementin January. Every semester the Center Coordinator,Stu Dawrs, and my assistant in the Library, LisaNguyen, provide excellent support at many diff e r e n tlevels. Congratulations and good luck to Lisa, whograduates this semester with a Master’s in Library andInformation Sciences. More pikake people.

Through this note, I hope to pass the pikake, soyou may be inspired by its simple beauty andmemorable fragrance. In the New Year, may all theprotests against war, the Patriot Act, and militaryexpansion succeed—Pikake Peace.

Aloha and Happy Holidays!

By Monica Ghosh

“ The potential to strengthen South Asian Studies by exploring interactionsand exchanges between Asians and the Paci f i c are endless…”

South Asia News 2

Faculty Profile3 Fall 2003

hen Jagdish Sharma first arrived on theUniversity of Hawai‘i campus in 1964, his

colleagues outside of theIslands didn’t expect himto stay too long. Twoyears after he’d receivedhis Ph.D. from theUniversity of London’sSchool of Oriental andAfrican Studies, Jagdishwas one of only threehistorians in the UnitedStates focusing on ancientIndia, and was beingcourted by such presti-gious universities asColumbia, the Universityof Virginia and Syracuse.But even when Columbiaoffered to triple his salary,he refused to leave theUniversity of Hawai‘i.

“Everybody at Columbia said that this is such anisolated and provincial place, that I would be fedup with it within a couple years and would beback,” he says. “But I found it better actually,because everybody came to the East-West Centerand to the University. And anybody can teach atan elite university—they can buy anybody—but I wanted to teach the kids who were like the v i l l a g ekids in India, the plantation kids, so Istayed here.”

By the time Jagdish retired in December of thisy e a r, thirty-nine and a half years after he started hisUH career, he had certainly accomplished that goal:At last count he had either chaired or sat on the com-mittees of more than 150 students who recievedeither an M.A. or Ph.D., several of whom went on tojoin the faculty in various departments of the

U n i v e r s i t y. In addition, he extended his educationalreach even further by serving as a consultant to theSouth Pacific Commission, where he worked torewrite the basic high school curriculum for SouthPacific students.

Now that he has retired, Jagdish hasno plans to slow down. In the Springof 2004 he will serve as an aff i l i a t efaculty member at the University ofLondon, and in the fall will travel toVietnam to teach for a semester there.At present, he also has somewhere inthe range of a half-dozen book proj-ects in various stages of completion.Among others, he is revising andexpanding his seminal historical workRepublics in Ancient India, which willbe reprinted by New Delhi’sMunshiram Manoharlal in 2004;working on the final manuscript of anew book, Jinism, All the Teachings ofthe Jinas; serving as editor (and a con-tributor) for the forthcomingIndividuals and Ideas in Tr a d i t i o n a lI n d i a :Ten Interpretive Studies ( w h i c h

will also be published by Munshiram Manoharlal);compiling a volume tentatitively titledShramanism: Six Interpretations (to which he willcontribute a piece on Buddhism as a Messianicmovement); and working on two other manu-scripts, J i n i s m :A Historical Perspective and J a i n aH e ro e s.

“ I’ ve been working for twenty or thirty yearson some of these projects,” he says.“You can’ treally produce everything while you’ re teaching—and I’ ve been offered grants in the past, butonly if I do projects that they tell me to do. I’ venever accepted that: I’m a scholar and I choosemy own subjects to write on. So now I’ ll do themon my own time: I have several such manuscriptsthat are practically finished, so I plan to finishone per year. ”

By Stu Dawrs

Jagdish Sharma

o understand how Kazi Ashraf cameto be teaching in the University of

H a w a i ‘ i ’s School of Architecture, youfirst have to draw a physical line fromBangladesh to the Eastern United Statesand on into the Pacific. You also have todescribe a theoretical arc from India toJapan, through Germany and beyond.

“ I was getting more and more interest-ed in Japan, and I thought Hawai‘iwould be a nice place to be in theUnited States and looking at Japan,” hesays. “My dissertation is about asceticism in archi-tecture. T h e m a t i c a l l y, it has to do with the hermit'shut: People renounce and then in some way theyconfigure a house—through old Buddhist texts Iwas trying to figure out the significance of thesehuts. And that led me to Japan, to the tea house.”

The short version of this trek begins with theancient Sutra Vimalakirti, which tells the tale of anextremely wealthy yet enlightened businessman.Hearing that a Bodhisattva was approaching hishome with a huge retinue—and knowing that hewould be unable to entertain such a throng—Vimalakirti empties out his home.

“ I t ’ s a parable about emptiness and cleansingonself,” says Kazi. “That text really grabbed theimagination of the Japanese: Emptying things out sothat everything can come in. That is the basis of thetea house. If you look at Japan now, you would thinkthat the aesthetic has always been sparse and mini-malist, but a lot of medieval Japanese houses werepretty Baroque. So this was an imported aesthetic. Itdidn't come directly from India of course, it wasrefracted through China and all of that. And what theJapanese did with the tea houses was to convert theirarchitecture to show this lesson of renunciation.”

But how does Germany enter the picture?“Modern architectural minimalism was really

perfected by Mies van der Roh, the German architectwho was working in Chicago. Prior to the 19th century,the Europeans were not doing minimalist architecture—

i t was all baroque, gaudy stuff. So whereis this minimalism coming from? TheGermans were very interested in Japanesearchitecture. … So this has been my workand will be part of my work for the nextfew years: If I can argue that the Japanesetea house had an impact on modernaesthetics, and that the tea house wasinfluence by Vimalakirti's house, then Iam making a link between Vimalakirti'shouse and modern minimalist aesthetics.”

This type of boundary crossing onK a z i ’s part extends into all aspects of his life. Born inDhaka and holding post-graduate degrees from MITand the University of Pennsylvania, he cites as influ-ences the famed Marxist-minimalist Bangladeshiarchitect Mazaharul Islam (with whom he worked fortwo years after recieving his professional degree), andthe equally famous American modernist a r c h i t e c tLouis Kahn, whose work he has studied extensively.Although he doesn’t adhere to a specfic architecturalmovement, he says he takes a certain amount of inspi-ration from the modernists. And, like MazaharulIslam, he is quick to assert that architecture is notisolated from society.

“You can destroy a city by building in it—youthink it's progress? It's not progress,” Kazi asserts.“You can disrupt civic culture, you can disrupt thesocial matrix, the sense of space, everything. Thekind of building typologies that are prevalent all overthe sub-continent—go to any city in India—it's anenclave, the first thing you do is put up walls: It tellsyou what people are thinking.”

Since arriving in Honolulu in Spring 2001, Kazi hasalso become actively involved in the local community.Among other projects, he currently sits on theAdvisory Commitee of the Doris Duke Foundation forIslamic A r t s ’ “Shangri La” Museum. In the Spring, hewill be teaching Intermediate Architecture, Studio B.

Faculty Profile

By Stu Dawrs

Kazi Ashraf

South Asia News 4

his year’s Hawai‘i International Film Festival(HIFF) featured severalSouth Asia-related

film screenings, symposiums and public forums.As in past years, it also brought together some ofthe world’s leading filmmakers, actors,and film theoreticians—among them theUniversity of Hongkong’sAckbar Abbas,who came to this year’s HIFF as thekeynote speaker for a symposium titledGLOBAL/LOCAL/EXOTIC:Transnational Production and Auto-Ethnography. His presentation—“AsianCities, Asian Cinemas”—was meant toaddress the ongoing debate over global-ism, globalization, and the way thesemovements are reconfiguring the exoticfrom the other to “the unknown-within-the-known.”

Abbas is well qualified to speak on the subject,having published numerous essays and a widelyregarded book—Hong Kong: Culture and thePolitics of Disappearance(Minnesota UP, 1997)—covering much of Hongkong’s multi-faceted cul-ture, including its cinema.

Among other things, he is currently co-cordinat-ing (along with University of Chicago professor ofart history Wu Hung and the Berlin-based Houseof World Cultures) “On Beauty,” an exhibition andconference to take place in 2005.

A Hongkong native, Abbas has roots in NorthIndia, via his maternal grandfather. The followingconversation with CSAS director Monica Ghoshtook place during a brief break in this year’s HIFFevents.

Monica Ghosh: I wanted to talk more aboutyour ideas on “crossings” in films. …

A c k b a r Abbas: You know, this idea of crossings,i t ’s something to do with the whole issue of visuali-ty—my key example would be the preserved build-ing, which looks old and traditional but is the

matrix for responding to change. What is it you areseeing in what you’re seeing? There is a kind ofsplit there, which seems to parallel this splitbetween different forms of urbanisms, like suburbia

and what my friend MarioGandelsonas calls “x-urbia.” Hed o e s n ’t emphasize this too much,but the point that really strikes youabout how he describes it is that sub-urbia and x-urbia might in fact lookthe same—the difference lies in theway they’re framed in relationship tothe global. Because suburbia has akind of relationship to the city ofskyscrapers—the urban site of bigbusiness, which people in the sub-

urbs live outside of. But x-urbia obeys completelyd i fferent rules: I t ’s the moment when some of thesenew industries—information industries—can moveoutside the main city and still be in touch and incontrol. So they moved to the suburbs and the sub-urbs are now transformed: I t ’s not just a residence,i t ’s a place of entertainment, and everything youfind in the city you can find replicated in x-urbia.

The key idea I wanted to develop fromG a n d e l s o n a s ’writing (X-Urbanism: A rc h i t e c t u reand the American City,Princeton UP, 1999) is in onelittle footnote which he doesn’t expand upon. And Id o n ’t know yet if you can expand upon it: He saysthese x-urban sites are found in the United States,but he also says that some of the most powerfulexamples are now in Asia. So that’s how I readthese “x’s” and the whole question of the visual,which brings us to cinema—cinema and cities.

M G : I’m interested in the representations ofSouth Asians in Hongkong. There is a tendency torepresent Hongkong as more Sinic and not as cos-mopolitan—or rather, particularly cosmopolitan:More of a caucasian or white influence, that kind of

Interview5 Fall 2003

Please see “ABBAS” on page 7

Ackbar Abbas

Summer Institute South Asia News 6

he Asian Studies Development Program, a col-laborative effort of the University of Hawai‘i

and the East-West Center, will conduct an NEH-funded summer institute on Religion and Politics inIndia: Culture, History and the ContemporaryE x p e r i e n c eover five weeks (June 7-July 9, 2004).The Institute begins from the premise that the studyof contemporary worlds must be grounded in a his-torically rich appreciation and understanding of cul-ture and the humanities. Because of the broad ambi-

tions and interdisciplinary nature of the program, itwill pay critical attention to primary texts (in thebroadest sense, including classical literatures andscriptures, oral narratives, artworks, rituals, filmsand novels) drawn from both the core culturalcanons of India and their many, often subaltern,folk and marginalized, alternatives. The central con-cerns during the Institute will include:

• Demonstrating that the relationship between thepolitical and the religious has been deeply pacificand constructive, as well as conflicted or martial;

• Developing insight into the diverse ways inwhich religious sensibilities have infused the polit-ical realm with both ethical boundaries and a moralaesthetic;

• Examining the ways in which political powerhas been deployed in extending and refining thereach of religious traditions, most notably in thecase of Buddhism and Islam;

• Unpacking the importance of religion in fram-ing the political ethics of leaders like MahatmaGandhi and Babasaheb Ambedkar;

• Understanding the extraordinary importance ofcaste as an institution and practice both for reli-gious traditions of India and, increasingly, for the

evolution of its electoral democracy today; and• Considering the implications of a rising tide of

Hindu fundamentalism for the survival of a pluralistethos in this part of the world.

Prior to the workshop, participants will be askedto read three texts that will provide them withshared perspectives on Indian history, culture, poli-tics and sensibilities. They are:

• The Bhagavad Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in

Times of War, ed. and trans. Barbara Stoler Miller,New York, Bantam, 1986.

• Shashi Tharoor, India: from midnight to themillennium, Penguin, 1997.

• Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children, NewYork, Avon, 1982.

In addition to these texts, on arrival participantswill receive a collection of readings selected by thepresenting faculty to provide: pertinent backgroundfor individual program lectures and discussions;scholarly resources useful for further research; andtextual materials useful in building India-focusedcourse modules, syllabi and curricula.

Religion and Politics in India: History, Cultureand the Contemporary Experience is designed tomeet the needs of faculty from the humanities andsocial sciences who are interested in deepening therole of comparative cultural studies through theinfusion of Indian materials into their teaching. T h electures, films, readings and discussions will be ori-ented towards helping Institute participants con-struct engaging, well-informed, and critically robustcourse modules and syllabi that will meaningfullyintegrate India into existing and planned curricula.For more information, e-mail krishna@hawaii.edu.

“ The Insti tute begins f rom the premise that the study of contemporary worldsmust be grounded in a historical l y rich appreciation and

understanding of cul ture and the humani ties.”

intersection and not so much with other A s i a n s . …AA: That’s a really good point. It’s something

you find in Hongkong and China as well:Theyseem to pretend that South Asia doesn’t exist.There’s no discourse in it:India for example—India might be very interested in China, but Chinadoesn’t seem interested in India. There’s no refer-ence; it’s not present, it’s not onscreen at all.

We were talking today about the Bruce Leefilm—the way in which South Asia existed wouldbe in the same way this Indian character is treatedin this extremely racist and prejudicial way, which

seems to go against the main idealogy of the film… the idea of the underdog rising up, you know?So instead you have the Chinese underdog findinganother underdog.

MG: Yes, I thought that was interesting: T h a tkind of racism and xenophobia embedded in a kungfu film, even though ultimately the victor seemslike the person who needs to have some voice. …

AA: Yes, a lot of liberatory discourses can beextremely ambiguous. Fissures and margins andcracks: Not all cracks are progressive—they couldjust be alibis.

ABBAS, continued from page 5

Continued on page 15

he 21st Annual Spring Symposium of theCenter for South Asian Studies at the

University of Hawai‘i is scheduled for April 15-16,2004. This year’s Symposium is titled“Neoliberalism in South Asia: Culture, Gender,and Labor.”

In the 1980s and 1990s, South Asian countriesadopted neoliberal policies that led to increasedforeign investment, export-oriented economies,and cuts in public spending.With these transforma-tions, South Asia has become increasinglyenmeshed in global and gendered flows of cultureand labor. What localized responses have theseprocesses generated? The CSAS Spring sympo-sium will focus on such key themes as:

• economy/poverty• state practices and policy • popular culture, film/media/TV• gender and sustainability• women’s movements• religion• migration (domestic: rural/urban)/diaspora• labor rights• technology

Papers addressing theoretical innovations inunderstanding neoliberalism in these different con-texts are also invited.

Paper proposals must include presenter’s name,contact information (including e-mail address,mailing address, and telephone number), papertitle, and abstract (no more than 250 words). If apaper proposal is accepted, two nights accommo-dation for presenters visiting Hawai‘i will be pro-vided on campus. Travel to and from Hawai‘i mustbe made at the presenter’s expense.

Submit paper proposals to:Center for South Asian Studies223 Moore HallUniversity of Hawai‘i at MänoaHonolulu, HI 96822

Or:

csas@hawaii.edu

PROPOSALS ACCEPTED FROMJANUARY 1, 2004-MARCH 1, 2004.

The CSAS Spring Symposium is made possiblevia the generous support of G.J. and EllenWatumull and The Sidney Stern Memorial Trust.

Call For Papers7 Fall 2003

KA: Let me ask you this way, because otherpeople will raise it, so why should we now beconcerned about this man comingto Dhaka from Philadelphia withhis dream project?

NK: Well I think that’s a goodquestion. There are several answers.One, I found in the people ofBangladesh tremendous respect forwhat someone has given, morerespect there than we have here.This is about a man who reallygave his life for this project. And Ithink that so many times peoplehave given their lives for somethingand maybe it hasn’t turned out thatwell. What amazed me is howwonderfully this project turned outnot only as a national treasure butan international treasure. This isn’t just myfather’s dream project, it’s also an example for theworld… It’s an amazing place. I didn’t know howwonderful it was until I went there.

The first day I was in Dhaka my architectguide Nurur Rahman Khan blindfolded me, andwe drove through the streets and as you knowDhaka is very noisy. The sound of the babytaxis, the sound of the trucks, the constant honk-ing and yelling and shouting and rickshaws andeverything, it’s very exciting but it’s also very,very loud. And we drove through the streets…So we pulled up front and I got out from the taxi

and suddenlythere was softground undermy feet. A n dwe startedwalking up, Iwas being ledb l i n d f o l d e dinto this area. Id i d n ’t know

what it was yet. And it was soft ground undermy feet and sounds of the city started to recedeand Nurur Khan said, “Are you ready to see this

building?” And I said “ I’m not ready yet, notready I just want to stand here for a moment andfeel this place.” I have to say that standing on

that lawn you could feel the building, you couldfeel the space around the building. It was as ifsomething was breathing there, it was air aroundit, it was space. It’s really being in the presenceof something spiritual. It’s like being in the pres-ence of a great temple. You feel it. You can feela great monument by the silence around it andmy father talked about the silence...

KA: You need a silence like that in the city.N K : A b s o l u t e l y, a city must have silence. And of

course you can call it a park, you can call it what-ever you want to call it but a city must have silencesomewhere in the core because that is a place ofcalm from which action comes. You can’t haveaction if it’s all just nervousness and energ y. Yo uhave to have a calm space. So there I stood in thecalm space, breathing deeply, and I said, “okay, I’mr e a d y,” and he took off the blindfold and there wasthe south lawn in front of me, the south plaza andthe building rising above it with the flag, theBangladesh flag, and I burst into tears. I actuallyburst into tears and it is the only building of myf a t h e r’s that has ever made me cry because I feltthis was worth everything he gave, giving up obli-gations to family, giving up worldly goods that hecould have had, money he could have had, all

Residences, Kahn’ s complex.

photo: Syed Zakir Hossain

KAHN, Continued from page 1

South Asia News 8

photo: Chetana

kinds of things hegave up for this. Itwas worth itbecause this build-ing is a timelesswork of great spir-itual power. Myimmediate impres-sion was, I didn’tsee anything elsearound it but thisbuilding, thisform. There wasnothing encroach-ing upon it. It was a pure, very pure view, and thatview also talks about how a government has to actwith great clarity and definition and be a symbolfor its people. T h a t ’s something that deserves spacearound it. You can’t just shove that in the middle ofbuildings in a city…

KA: Yes, one has to realize that architecture isnot just buildings, the material physical objects.The space around it, that’s architecture too. Peopleshould realize that you need those spaces. A city isa matrix of buildings and spaces.

N K : A b s o l u t e l y, and the Parliament Building isthe centerpiece of that matrix, no matter what hap-pens in the rest of Dhaka City. Let them build else-where... progress is good but it is not progress if yousqueeze the Parliament by building all around it.

KA: I like that.N K : That is not progress, this is actually going

backwards. Think of what New York would bewithout Central Park, the city would not exist. I livein New York City, the city would be utterly unlive-able if we didn’t have Central Park. It is the onlyplace where the city breathes and the city can stopand collect itself and remember who it is. You take arun through that park and you remember this is awonderful city. I live in the middle of all this din butI can get away from it. I was also deeply impressedby the fact that everybody I’ve met in the far flungplaces of the world, Bangladeshis, everybody has astory not just about the parliament building but thespace around it. Everybody has a story about meet-ing a friend on the plaza, playing a game on the

lawn, being a child on the lawn,walking around the Crescent Lake,exploring the area that the streetsgo past the hostels. Everybody hasa story about it, and they’re won-derful stories. Some of them areromantic: “ I met my wife there.”Some of them are dramatic: “ I hada political confrontation, an impor-tant political discussion there.”Some of them are artistic: “ I hadan idea for a book while walkingaround that lake every morning.”A very famous American architect,

I.M. Pei, told me before I went there, "Look, I’veseen pictures of this building but I’ve never seenhow it’s used by people…" I was there for a week,two weeks actually, and every time I went I saw thebuilding being used in different ways and that is asign of a great space.

KA: There is something else I would like tobring up, Kahn’s interest in landscape. I don’tknow when he really became interested in land-scape, although he was interested in how buildingse m e rged from the landscape in a profound relation-ship between the two. His buildings look verycrisp, cubic and crystalline, but they arise from theground in a sort of mythical manner. I think thatespecially in Bangladesh Kahn was really amazedby the aquatic landscape and talked about how heshould do "an architecture of the land" here, what Icall a hydrological architecture. I know that yourmother is a landscape architect and she workedwith him for a while even on this project. I wouldthink, and people would say too, that Lou Kahnbrought his own American, western ideas, andwhat have you, but at the same time he engagedvery poetically and in very imaginative ways withw h a t ’s already there, with the landscape ofBangladesh. The result is a very new creation inDhaka, especially the matrix not just the buildings.

N K : Beautifully said. A couple of things come tomind. When the Aga Khan Award was given, theysaid that the Parliament Building is a universal kindof architecture but it could only exist here, it could

Kahn’ s complex

Continued on page 14

9 Fall 2003

photo: Chetana

Kazi Ashraf (Ar chitecture) pre-sented a paper, “Sundarnagar:The City in Cinematic andArchitetural Imagination,” at theAnnual Conference on SouthAsia, University of Madison. He also presented the paper“Where Is Architceture” at theARCASIA (Regional Council ofAsian Architects) SeminarGlobalization and AsianArchitecture in Dhaka. In 2004he will present the paper “Ta k i n gPlace: The Notion of Landscapein Louis Kahn's Architecture” atYale University. He was recentlymade a member of the AdvisoryCommittee to the Doris DukeHouse, and is also a member ofthe Advisory Committee, IslamicArts World International.

S. Charusheela's (Wo m e n ’sS t u d i e s )new book, co-edited withEiman Zein-Elabdin (Franklin andMarshall College),Postcolonialism meets Economics,was just published by Routledgethis Fall. She attended theInternational Association forFeminist Economics conference atthe Centre for Gender andDevelopment Studies at theUniversity of West Indies,Barbados, this summer; and pre-sented at the International Galaconference of R e t h i n k i n gM a rx i s m, “Marxism and theWorld Stage.” Charu will be onleave in Spring, and will spend hertime visiting with the Departmentof Women's Studies and the SouthAsian Studies Program atUniversity of Wa s h i n g t o n .

This semester, Monisha DasG u p t a ’s (Ethnic Studies /Wo m e n ’s Studies) article, “Theneoliberal state and the domesticw o r k e r s ’movement in NewYork,” appeared in C a n a d i a nWoman Studies. Her book manu-script, U n ruly Immigrants: Post-1965 South Asian Activism in theUnited States, is under review. A tthe end of last summer, sheserved as a discussant on anAmerican SociologicalAssociation meetings panel onGender and Globalization. Shewent to the 32nd Annual SouthAsian Studies conference inMadison Wisconsin in October topresent a paper on a panel org a n-ized by CSAS Director MonicaGhosh. The paper was based onher research on the impact of 9/11on New York City taxi drivers,the majority of whom are SouthAsian. She continues to developthe 9/11 research into articles.

P e t e rH. Hoff e n b e r g ’s (History )e s s a y, “Photography andArchitecture at the CalcuttaInternational Exhibition,” was pub-lished in Traces of India:P h o t o g r a p h y, A rc h i t e c t u re, and thePolitics of Representation, 1850-1900 (Maria Antonella Pelizzari,ed. Yale Center for British Art andCanadian Centre for A r c h i t e c t u r e ) .His article “Promoting Tr a d i t i o n a lIndian Art at Home and A b r o a d :The Journal of Indian Art andI n d u s t r y, 1884-1917,” will be pub-lished in a forthcoming, specialisssue on South Asia of Vi c t o r i a nPeriodicals Review.

In the Fall 2003 semester,G re g o ry G. Maskar inec(Family Practice andCommunity Health, John A .Burns School of Medicine) w a san invited scholar in the“Milieux, Sociétes et Cultures enHimalaya” Division of France'sCentre National de la RechercheScientifique (CNRS). There heworked toward completing hisnext volume of Nepalese ShamanOral Te x t s(to be published byHarvard University Press in2004). He was simultaneouslyguest professor of A n t h r o p o l o g yat the University of Paris X(Nanterre), where he presented aseries of lectures on Himalayanculture, language, medicine andreligion. He was also an invitedparticipant of the Maison desSciences de l’Homme’s project“Les archives audiovisuelles de larecherche en sciences humaineset sociales,” in which parts of hisaudio-visual field collectionsfrom Nepal will be archived.

Chennat Gopalakrishnan(Natural Resources &E n v i ronmental Management),has been selected Fellow of theAmerican Water ResourcesAssociation, the leading associa-tion of water professionals in theU.S. The selection recognizesGopalakrishnan's record of schol-arship in a branch of waterresources science or technologyand his outstanding contributionsto the water resources community.Gopalakrishnan is one of threeFellows selected in 2003. He was

Faculty News South Asia News 10

presented the award at a specialfunction of the American Wa t e rResources annual meeting held inSan Diego on November 2, 2003.Gopalakrishnan's edited volume oforiginal papers titled Wa t e rInstitutions: Stru c t u re ,Performance, and Pro s p e c t s(Springer) is scheduled for publi-cation in 2004. His paper, co-authored with Phuong Dang andtitled “An Application of theContingent Valuation Method(CVM) to Estimate the Loss ofValue of Water Resources due toPesticide Contamination: The Caseof the Mekong Delta, Vi e t n a m ”was published in the Decemberissue of the International Journalof Water Resources Development( O x f o r d ) .Gopalakrishnan presented twoinvited talks on water institutions,economics, and policy in theAmerican West at two major pro-fessional conferences—the first atthe Western Economic A s s o c i a t i o nannual meeting held in Denver inJuly 2003 and the second at theAmerican Water ResourcesAssociation annual meeting heldin San Diego in November 2003.

Monica Ghosh(South AsiaLibrarian, CSAS Dir ector)organized and chaired a paneltitled Transnational Crossings:Film, Sexuality, and Work andrepresented a paper titled,“Mohamed Rafi rocks and AmirKhan swings (a bat) asBollywood crosses over on atwo-way street,” at the 32ndAnnual Conference on South

Asia in Madison, Wisconsin,October 24, 2004.

Sankaran Kr ishna, ( P o l i t i c a lS c i e n c e ), working in associationwith the Asian StudiesDevelopment Program of the EastWest Center, was awarded anNEH grant for $ 180,000 to con-duct a summer institute on“Religion and Politics in India:H i s t o r y, Culture and theContemporary Experience.” T h eInstitute will be held at the EastWest Center between June 7 andJuly 9, 2004, and will include,among others, Gyan Pandey, SunilK u m a r, Ram-Prasad Chakravarthi,Parna Sengupta, Itty A b r a h a m ,M.S.S. Pandian, Lalitha Gopalan,Ruby Lal and many others. T h o s einterested in knowing more aboutthe Institute may contact Krishnaat krishna@hawaii.edu.

During his Fall 2003 sabbatical,Lee Siegel ( R e l i g i o n )has been aresident fellow at the RockefellerF o u n d a t i o n ’s Villa Serbelloni inBellagio, Italy. He was one ofthirty-three featured authors at theInternationales Literaturfestival inBerlin, and was a speaker andpanelist at the South A s i a nLiterary and Theater Arts Festivalin Washington, D.C. He lecturedon and performed traditionalIndian street magic at theAcademie de Magie in Paris andat Williams College inMassachusetts. His essay onHawai‘i was published by NationBooks in John Leonard’s T h e s eUnited States: Original Essays by

Leading American Writers onTheir States Within the Union.L’Amour dans une langue mort e,a French translation of his novelLove in a Dead Language w a spublished by Editions PhilippePicquier in Paris. And his novel,Love and Other Games ofC h a n c e, will be issued in paper-back by Penguin Books inJ a n u a r y.

Matthew Lopre s t i( P h i l o s o p h y )currently serves as Lecturer ofBuddhist Philosophy and FieldResearch Advisor on the A n t i o c hCollege Buddhist Studies A b r o a dprogram in Bodh Gaya, India. A sa language fellow with theAmerican Institute of IndianStudies, Matthew completed anadvanced Sanskrit language pro-gram at Deccan College in Pune,India, this past summer. In A p r i l2004, Matthew will complete thecomprehensive examinations forhis M.Phil. and will submit hisdissertation proposal for thedegree of Doctor of Philosophyon existentialism, embodiment,and religious experience.

John R. Pincince ( H i s t o ry ) i scompleting his dissertation onV.D. Savarkar, which he willdefend in August 2004.

Ashwin Raj (Political Science)presented a paper in November2003 at the Rethinking MarxismConference at University of

Student Notes

11 South Asia News

continued on page 12

he J. Watumull Scholarship for the Studyof India was established to promote

understanding of India through scholarshipsupport of University of Hawai‘i students witha focused and well-developed proposal tostudy for a minimum of two months in India.The scholarship, which is generously support-ed by the Watumull Foundation, provides upto $5,000 to students in areas of study such asthe visual and performing arts, history, philos-o p h y, religion, and politics, as well as anyother field including the professional schoolsand community college programs. Furtherinformation and applications are availableonline at http://www.hawaii.edu/ csas/watu-mull.html, by e-mail at csas@hawaii.edu, orby calling the Center for South Asian Studiesat (808) 956-5652

Massachusetts (Amherst) international gala con-ference—Marxism on the World Stage. T h epaper was titled “‘Good’ Governance: Nirvana inan age of Global Capitalism.”

As part of her work funded by the J.Watumull Scholarship for the Study of India,Jessica Schmidt (Political Science) s p e n tsix weeks of her summer in Mumbai, Dhaka,and Kolkata, to get acclimated to l ife inIndia and to undergo language immersion inpreparation for an extended trip during thespring of 2004. While she is still in theprocess of finalizing arrangements, she willmost l ikely spend next semester at CalcuttaUniversity as a visiting scholar, attendingclasses and seminars in the fields of politicalscience and economics.

Student News, continued from page 1 1

AMST 318 Asian America:Survey TR 9:00 - 10:15 M. Das GuptaART 791 Hindu Art of South Asia R 1:30-4 N. DowlingHNDI 102 Elementary Hindi MWF 10:30 - 11:55 R. SharmaHNDI 202 Intermediate Hindi MWF 8:30 - 9:55 R. SharmaSNSK 182 Intro to Sanskrit TR 9:00 - 10:15 R. SharmaSNSK 282 Intermediate Sanskrit TR 11:00 - 12:15 R. SharmaSNSK 381 Third-Level Sanskrit TR 2:30 - 3:45 R. SharmaHIST 241 Civilizations of Asia MWF 1:30 - 2:20 T. GoodmanHIST 241 Civilizations of Asia MWF 11:30 - 12:20 L. KelleyHIST 302 History of India and Pakistan MWF 2:30 - 3:20 S. GuptaPACE 412 Gandhi, King, and Nonviolence TR 3:00 - 4:15 S. DixonPHIL 360 Buddhist Philosphy TR 9:00-10:15 R. PerrettPHIL 750 Seminar in Indian Philosophy M 12:45-3:15 TBAPOLS 615 Feminist Theory M1:30-4:00 M. Das GuptaREL 662B Indian Religions M1:30-4:00 L. SiegelASAN 312 Contemporary Asian Civilizations TR 12:00 - 1:15 L. CarlileASAN 491I Topics in Asian Studies: South Asia TBA M. SharmaASAN 493 Globalization in Asia MWF 8:30-9:20 S. Gupta

Spring Courses

South Asia News 12

“ T his secondnovel by

Siegel (Love in aDead Language)lives up to its subti-tle: it's organized asa game of Snakesand Ladders, witheach chapter representing a square on the gameboard; the reader can choose between a tradi-tional reading, from start to finish, and a playfulone, letting the roll of the dice decide. The storyfollows Isaac Schlossberg, a swindler, circusperformer and entertainer. As Schlossberg travelsaround the world (and across the board), hisstunts—from childhood appearances in sideshowacts with his Jewish immigrant parents at the

turn of the century to his attempts to beat SirEdmund Hillary to the top of Mount Everest—are woven together into one exceptionally talltale. Depending on one's point of view, this iseither the book's failing or its forte: the readerhardly has time to take in Schlossberg's romancewith a Hindu snake charmer, for example, beforehe flies off to a different corner of the earth, ad i fferent occupation and a different woman. A tthe beginning and end of the novel are some-what more grounded first-person accounts by awriter called Lee Siegel, Schlossberg's estrangedson, who explains that "a person's lies alwaysreveal some truth about them." The whole enter-prise is finally redeemed by Siegel's amusingdeadpan style: "The end of the war was... a blowto my father.... without a government paycheck...my father had to take agricultural work, using[his plane] to spray citrus groves with a poisonthat, developed for use on German infantrymen,proved lethal to American fruit flies.”

—Publisher’s Weekly

Lee Siegel\Viking, 2003

“The orthodox leftsilences postcolo-

nial theory with the eco-nomic instance. And thediscipline of economicshas remained untouchedby postcolonial theory.Postcolonialism MeetsE c o n o m i c ssteps into thebreach. It is historical:going from NassauSenior to colonial Peru; from contemporary

Israel to ante-bellum South. It istheoretical: embracing not onlypostcolonial theory and the fullrange of economic theory fromregression analysis to post-Keynesianism, but also feminism,critical race theory, and subalternstudies. Of particular interest arethe critical essays that carefullyorient the reader into the direc-tions of the interventions. Amuch-needed compendium.”

—Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,Avalon Foundation Professor in theHumanities, Columbia University;D i r e c t o r, Center for Comparative

Literature and Society.

Faculty Publications

S. Charusheela andEiman Zein-Elabdin, eds.Routledge Press, 2003

Postcolonialism Meets Economics

13 Fall 2003

Love and Other Games of Chance

only be in Dhaka. It is a timeless building but it isalso very specific to this place. My father’s firstresponse when he came to Dhaka was to go on theriver because he realized that flying in, and yourealize that flying in, that this is delta country. It is

a land thatis floatingon water.And he tooka boat onthe riverand the firstthing hedrew was—t h e r e ’s abeautiful lit-tle series of

drawings—little boats... When we were figuringout how to get to the building in the film, wedecided it has to rise out of the water. It is like animpossible, wonderful castle that lives in the mid-dle of the water. The fact that Lou put it in water isvery significant for several reasons. T h e r e ’s a prac-tical reason, the water rises and falls. Yes, it’s ondry land but really this whole place is floating onthe water. And so I think his specific response tothe place, to the landscape was very, very strong,and that building was not something he just kind ofstuck there. It was something that grew out of hisexperience of the land of Bangladesh. And I thinkthat it was very clear to him—he actually said this,which is interesting, that his dream more than any-thing else, more than designing individual build-ings, was to design the basis on which buildingswould be built. So you’re worried about matrix.T h a t ’s a plan, that’s a master plan. It’s somethinghe couldn’t do anywhere else in the world. He triedin Philadelphia, he was denied. And Philadelphianow is suffering the consequences… Anyway Ithink his response was very strong: I want to createnot just a building that serves a parliamentary pur-pose but a building in a landscape, a building in alandscape that responds to and expresses the actuallandscape that is native.

KA: And at the same time it’s a city, so there is a

twin thing, to live with the landscape and it is a city.I t ’s not an anti-city, that landscape and city are notantithetical. That I think was a challenge.

N K : I’m sure. And he didn’t impose the west-ern grid. It is much freer, more like the deltac o u n t r y. It is not rigid, it’s not canalled, it’smeandering. The river goes this way and it goesthat way.

KA: Even through the geometry of Kahn.NK: Sure. It has a porosity to it. Water passes

through, air passes through and this is space. Soit’s taking a chunk of space and defining it.

KA: That’s what I’ve also been saying, that ifthere is a model or a paradigm of a so-calledBengali city, it is perhaps this. Even though it hasbeen proposed by a Jewish architect fromPhiladelphia, it is a model of a Bengali city. Onedoesn’t have to be a Bengali to do that.

N K : A b s o l u t e l y, and this raises something won-derful which is that what Lou was after…an archi-tecture that came from before the beginning of his-t o r y. He was interested in creating an architecturethat was so ancient that it was more ancient thananything you’ve ever seen and I think in Dhaka hedid that. And this is part of what people respond tofrom all over the world. They go there and theythink, “God, where is this from?’ It belongs hereyet it has this resonance of something enormouslyancient. Was it built ten years ago, was it built10,000 years ago? You don’t know. And that issomething, that wonderful ambiguity and that reachfor something very ancient and very fundamental.

KA: You know this idea of a Bengali City couldbe entertained in two ways. This sense of veryarchaic as you just mentioned, this idea of VolumeZero if you like. That sort of Bengali City couldhave been there 2,000 years ago. But at the sametime it could be the Bengali City that could be2,000 years from now. We’re getting into wildspeculation but it’s that sort of a model as yousaid Kahn gave the foundation to. From the foun-dation any kind of building can come up in anystyle and material, glass, aluminum, steel, brick…that is not important, what is important is the waythe matrix is set up, that’s what he gave here andwhat we really need to analyze.

Kahn, continued from page 9

Nathaniel Kahn at the CapitalComplex, Dhaka, Bangladesh

South Asia News 14

MG: And that makes so much sense in terms ofmiddle class allegiances and alliances among peo-ple of color in the west:You’re a “crack,” but yourcrack is aligned with the dominant perspective, soyou don’t end up changing anything.

I’m curious about the South Asian community inHongkong … could you tell me a little about yourown experience?

AA: In a way, I was always in Hongkong butnot—you understand that a lot of us were likethat, in that my family was English speaking, ortried to be English speaking in a situation whichis predominantly Chinese speaking. Of course, inthose days, not knowing Chinese was a sort of aqualification, it placed you in a special class. So,they sort of deliberately avoided learningChinese, and they inculcated these attitudes intheir children. When I was growing up in the1940s and 1950s, Hongkong was a very diff e r e n tkind of place and China was a very diff e r e n tplace. All you saw from China in those days werethe more corrupt things that came through—themore debased things like the merchandise. A n dthat really molded one’s view—it was some timebefore I was able to get out of that prejudice, andI did it in the usual way—through art. You see theart and how great it is, and then you start rethink-ing the history.

MG : The project you are involved in in Berlin,“On Beauty,” is it something that is Sinic, or is itwider than that?

A A : I t ’s wider, it’s several things: One is anexhibition, which is being created by Wu Hong.But the other component is a set of conferenceson how we approach a topic like beauty today.So we take many different angles on it.

MG: The reason I was curious about the topicof beauty is that one of our faculty, A r i n d a mChakrabarti, does comparative philosophy ofWestern and Indian philosophers. He’s looking ata Kashmiri philosopher’s views on the grotesqueand then reading Western art through that theoryof the grotesque. …

AA: One of the things we’ re trying to get awayfrom is Kant, which is not an easy thing to do.

[ L a u g h t e r.] But one of the things I was introduc-ing to the discussion was an essay by Te n a z a k i —” In Place of Shadows.” One of the things aboutthat essay is that he talks about toilets; how thebest place to see beauty in Japan is in these toi-lets, which are basically outhouses. And he makesthese cultural comparisons: In America you wantto separate the dirty and the clean; in Japan, thedirty and the clean are linked to each other, andthat produces a different kind of aesthetic. Healso talks about lacquerware: It might lookextremely garish in the daytime. But if you thinkabout the dim lighting of a traditional Japanesehouse, under those circumstances, you understandwhy it’s done that way.

MG: It’s in a particular reflection and light andtradition that the beauty really emerges. …

AA: That’s right—so it’s a kind of comparativeaesthetics. I have an ambivalent relationshiptoward [Theodor] Adorno—his Aesthetic Theory iscertainly a great book … but at any rate, the rea-son I mention him is that he starts out with ugli-ness—the whole question of the ugly and thegrotesque.

M G : And it seems to me that the grotesqueand the ugly are currently of much more interestwith the grotesqueness of wars and politicalp o l i c i e s . …

AA: Yes, it’s like this continunation of intellec-tual enlightenment: He’s basically saying that in asense you begin with fear and the ugliness of theworld, and beauty is a kind of recuperation—t h a t ’s why it’s always something that’s slightlycompromised. When you’ re negating something,the way you negate it also negates itself. In aw a y, it’s a kind of illusion, but it’s a neccessaryillusion. So we’ ll do things with that kind of dou-ble move back.

MG: And beauty provides an avenue of hoperather than despair.

AA: Yes. It doesn’t sentimentalize the idea ofbeauty, but at the same time it’s not taking theopposite view that ugly is more important. So it’sa way of historicizing the argument:Under whatcircumstances would certain ideas of beautybecome dominant?

ABBAS, continued from page 7

15 Fall 2003

SOUTH ASIA NEWS STAFFMonica GhoshCSAS DirectorStu DawrsCSAS Coordinator

Contributions of articles, book reviewsand commentaries are welcome. Pleasesend them to us at csas@hawaii.edu

We also thank those who have supportedthe Center with monetary contributions inrecent years. These funds provide a flexi-ble resource to supplement our (rapidlydeclining) university operating budgetand permits us to augment our South Asiaactivities.

Your tax-deductible contributions aregreatly appreciated and can be madepayable to University of Hawai‘iFoundation Account No. 130910, c/oCenter for South Asian StudiesMoore 411, University of Hawai‘iHonolulu, HI, 96822 USA.

Nathaniel Kahn’ s My Architect screened as part ofthis year ’s Hawai‘i International Film Festival. Foran interview with the filmmaker , please see Page 1.An interview with festival participant Ackbar Abbascan be found on page 5.

Center for South Asian StudiesSchool of Hawaiian, Asian and PacificStudiesMoore Hall 4111890 East-West RoadUniversity of Hawai‘i-ManoaHonolulu, Hawai‘i, 96822 USA