Institutskolloquium

Laufendes Semester
Archiv

Liebe Kolleg*innen,
Liebe Studierende,

Im Kolloquium erhalten Lehrende, Mitarbeiter*innen und Doktorand*innen sowie externe Vortragende die Möglichkeit, ihre Forschungsinteressen, -ansätze, und -ideen, aber auch ihre Fragen vorzutragen und zu diskutieren. Regionale Schwerpunkte werden dabei durch systematische und theoretische Fragestellungen als Basis für vergleichende Forschungen ergänzt.

Das Institutskolloquium findet in zweiwöchigem Turnus, jeweils Dienstags von 17:15-18:45 Uhr, in Raum 010.01.05 (Hörsaal) des Südasien-Institutes statt.

Alle Interessent*innen sind herzlich eingeladen!

Laufendes Semester

20.01.2026

Prof. Dr. Sandra Calkins (University of Bayreuth)

“The end? Extinction, survivalist science and vegetal vitality in Uganda”

Fungi, bacterial and viral diseases, invasive pests, and unpredictable weather events have affected banana production across the globe. Today, the world’s most beloved fruit is threatened by extinction. This lecture addresses the predicament of dealing with beings on the cusp of extinction based on a case from Uganda, where I have done long-term fieldwork with plant scientists and farmers. I first trace ways in which local bananas have long become entangled with colonial and capitalist dynamics by following the arrival and management of the banana weevil, a devasting banana pest from Southeast Asia.

Dealing with this and other colonial-capitalist legacies is at the heart of contemporary international biotechnological conservation efforts that seek to enable the plant to survive in challenging environments. In the second part of my lecture, I focus on tech-driven, gene editing efforts that operate with survival temporalities and tackle apocalyptic scenarios on the molecular level. I outline the strange paradoxes in science between planetary imaginaries of future extinction and ever miniscule levels of technoscientific intervention. I show how scientific framings make addressing larger systemic issues driving species extinction unthinkable, but at the same time also allow conceiving of vegetal vitality in productive ways. Thinking alongside these scientific propositions about reproduction and vegetal capacity allows envisioning the impending “bananapocalypse” differently and cuts across rigid North Atlantic separations between life and death.

PDF

09.12.2025

Prof Dr. Richard Fox (University of Victoria, Canda)

"Graffiti as Argument and Aspiration: Transforming Agency and Collective Life in Yogyakarta"

This paper presents preliminary observations on graffiti and street art from recent fieldwork on the Indonesian island of Java. The research was conducted in the context of a new project examining ‘the aspiration for a better life’ as it is depicted in the street art, independent cinema, short stories and pop music produced and circulated in the Indonesian Special Region of Yogyakarta. The study focuses on changing ideals of romantic intimacy, family organization and personal fulfilment, and how these ideals are inflected by the intersection of gender, generation and social class. Engaging an interdisciplinary body of scholarship at the crossroads of anthropology, philosophy and Asian cultural studies, the project aims to forge a new approach to the analysis of cultural production as embodying a form of public argument. Skeptical of prevailing accounts of ‘the public sphere’, ‘publics’, ‘flows’, ‘scapes’ and related metaphors, the project aims to rethink conceptions of human agency and collective life as they pertain to the study of media and popular culture. These issues will be addressed with specific reference to graffiti writing and street art in contemporary Yogyakarta.

25.11.2025

PD Dr. Stefan Wellgraf (HU Berlin)

"Walks on the Right Side. Ethnography of the Far Right"

The anthropology of the far right has emerged in recent years as vibrant subfield of political anthropoloy. Reflecting on my own fieldwork on right-wing subcultures in East Germany, I show the diversity of ethnographic work in this field. I distinguish between different approaches, highlighting their potential and challenges: participant observation, interview-based studies and a focus on cultural semiotics and political economy. All of these approaches do not only have different strengths & weaknesses, they also offer divergent answers to the pressing ethical questions posed by the anthropology of the far right.

11.11.2025

Dr. Anjum Alvi und Dr. Lukas Werth (Berlin)

"Ethics and Power: the structures of the Indus Valley and their modern transformation"

The traditional form of religion in the Indus valley consists to a large extent of mystical Islam, characterized by gifts exchanged between holy persons, pir, and their followers, murid. Power here is channeled through the reciprocity of gift exchange, rendered asymmetrical by an initial generosity that is expressed through observable beauty that interacts with concealed one, and gifts are congealments of visible and invisible sacrality, i.e. liminality. The liminal figure of the pir stands for conceived flow of abundant generosity, originating from the mythical world, created a system of greatly appealing beauty and harmony that drew in Hindu and Sikh followers as well and in turn created desires and power. By contrast, modernist Islamic expressions, going against these traditions, emphasize outside borders confining intellectual spaces, replacing a former intellectual principle that starts from a center and explores how far it may get from there. This modernist attitude, inscribed in the Pakistani state through the process of its formation, is based on rules and duties that are still derived from the mythical world but render the divine as tied to a power that casts it as subject to utilitarian values.

28.10.2025

Dr. Jonathan Krämer (Heidelberg)

"Medical screenings and the production of migrant bodies in Indonesia"

Migrant workers from Indonesia seeking to work in countries across Asia and the Middle East are generally required to undergo medical screenings as part of the recruitment process. In this talk, I focus on one particular part of this screening – the physical exam – and consider its relation to the construction of workforces. I connect these biomedical screening practices in clinics with selection procedures taking place in recruitment centers and elsewhere, arguing that in the process specific bodies of migrant workers are produced.

Bitte Raumänderung beachten!

Dienstag, 28. Oktober, 17:15 - 18.45 Uhr
CATS
Gebäude 4400
Raum 02.12 (HCTS)