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This talk by Yousuf Saeed on the popular image and media practices around Delhi’s Sufi shrine of Nizamuddin Aulia focuses on how the popular visuality around the shrine has changed over time in response to the changes brought about by urbanization, movement of pilgrims, new technology, and competition from the more orthodox tableeghi and Wahhabi ideologues in the vicinity.

This work-in-progress is part of a research and documentation project tracing the transcultural flows between Europe and Asia in Muslim popular iconography, under the Cluster of Excellence ‘Asia and Europe in a Global Context: Shifting Asymmetries in Cultural Flows’, University of Heidelberg, Germany.

Yousuf Saeed is a Delhi-based researcher and filmmaker having directed well-known documentary films such as Basant, Khayal Darpan, and The Train to Heaven, among others, which have been screened at several international film festivals. He has worked for the Times of India and Encyclopaedia Britannica as video and image editor. His research on popular Muslim devotional iconography in India has culminated into a forthcoming book. Yousuf is currently the director of Tasveer Ghar, a digital archive of Indian popular visual culture.

Friday, January 22, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Siddhartha Hall, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhawan
3, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001

Entry free

The German Embassy in Cooperation with Max Planck Institute organises regular public lectures and talks encompassing Sciences as well as Social Sciences and Humanities. This month's lecture will be held by
Prof. Gerhard Wolf, Director of the Art History Institute in Florence - Max Planck Institute
on the topic
Mediterranean Art Histories in a transcultural perspective. The Case of Medieval Sicily

Date:     Monday, December 7th, 2009, 6.30 p.m.

 

Venue:  Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Centre, Lodi Road.

Prof. Dr. Wolf's research interests include Italian art and visual culture in a Mediterranean and European framework, the pictorial world of Italian cities from the 12th to 15th century, theories of the "image" and historical anthropology of image and media.

For details please contact wiss-20@newd.diplo.de, Tel: 011-44199164 or visit www.science-circle.org

On Monday, 16th November the Rector of Heidelberg University, Prof. Dr. Bernhard Eitel, and Director General of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) Virendra Gupta signed a Memorandum of Understanding towards the establishment of the Heirich-Zimmer-Chair for Indian Philosophy and Intellectual History. Prof. Dr. Gita Dharampal-Frick and Prof. Dr. Axel Michaels signed the MoU on behalf of Heidelberg's South Asia Institute and Cluster 'Asia and Europe in a Global Context', respectively.


Left to right: Prof. Dr. Axel Michaels, Prof. Dr. Bernhard Eitel, Virendra Gupta, Prof. Dr. Gita Dharampal-Frick

The first of its kind in Germany, the chair is being endowed to the University by the ICCR, in recognition of its outstanding achievements in research, teaching and academic cooperation with India. It will be affiliated to the South Asia Institute and the Cluster 'Asia and Europe' but also fostering intensive cooperation with the Philosophical Faculty. This is what makes it, in the eyes of Prof. Dr. Dharampal-Frick, so unique:" The Heinrich-Zimmer-Chair will contribute a great deal to liberate Indian philosophical thinking from its niche existence and integrate it into the mainstream of philosophical teaching and research in Germany."

Virendra Gupta, Director General, ICCR delivering his speech

A renowned Indian scholar will take up teaching and research activity on this position from April 2010 onwards, for an initial period of two years.
The signing of the MoU is part of Heidelberg University's overall strategy of strenthening academic cooperation with India and South Asia a s a whole. Towards this end, the Heidelberg Centre South Asia has been openend just a day after the signing ceremony.