SAI - News

The SAI is one of the founding members of the Heidelberg Center for the Environment (HCE) that was inaugurated this week. A total of 10 institutes and institutions at Heidelberg University joined forces for the HCE. At HCE the existing competences on environment sciences will be brought together thus intensifying and further developing activities in research, teaching as well as knowledge transfer. The HCE aims at conducting research on the challenges and ecological implications caused by natural, technological and social changes. Find further information on HCE here. Elected founding members of the HCE board are the SAI members Prof. Dr. Marcus Nüsser and (as deputy) Prof. Dr. William Sax.

For the new course MA South Asian Studies that will start in the coming winter term  2011/2012 there is now a homepage available. The homepage includes general information on the course, dates of students' councelling as well as terms of application. At this point the information is available in German only, an English version is under preparation. Potential students should visit the students' counselling that is offered every monday. (find dates here).  

On coming Friday, July 15th, 4 pm, at SAI library we will hold the Dieter Conrad Memorial Lecture. For this event we have invited Professor Dr. Philipp Dann, LL.M from Gießen University who will hold a lecture on "Federal Democracy in India and the EU".

Prof. Dann studied law and political theory at Humboldt University (Berlin), Harvard Law School and Goethe University (Frankfurt), taught European and constitutional law in Germany, The Sudan and India (NUJS, Kolkata) and was a research fellow at New York University and Georgetown University (Washington DC). He now holds a chair in Public and Comparative Law at Justus-Liebig-University Gießen (Germany). Prof. Dann is also a Schumpeter-Fellow of the VolkswagenFoundation. He has published widely on the law of the European Union, on the law of international organizations and most recently on issues of law and development. Prof. Dann is the first chairholder in Germany who has a focus on Indian law.

The lecture will start with greetings by Mr. Ajit Gupte, Deputy Chief of Mission, Indian Embassy, Berlin as well as Prof. Dr. Hans Harder and Prof. Subrata Mitra. After the lecture two commentaries by Prof. Dr. Bharat Desai (JNU, Delhi) and Dr. Jona Aravind Dohrmann (DIZ, Frankfurt/Main) will be given. The event ends with a reception in the hall.

Everbody most welcome. Please register with Mrs. Rott under phone 54-8954 or e-mail urott@sai.uni-heidelberg.de

Trilateralism & Triangular Dynamics in International Relations. Implications for International Relations Theory is the title of an International Conference on the 8th and 9th of July at SAI. The Conference is organized by  Department of Political Science, SAI, Heidelberg University and the Institute of International Relations, University of Warsaw, Centre for Contemporary India Research. Find more details including the program (pdf) here. 

09:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Colloquium: “Celebrating Tagore”

09:30 a.m.  Hans Harder (SAI Heidelberg): Introductory Remarks
09:45 a.m.  Barnita Bagchi (IDSK Kolkata / Utrecht University): “Rabindranath and Utopia: Some Considerations”
10:30 a.m.  Rahul Peter Das (MLU Halle-Wittenberg): “My Golden Bengal, I Love You”
11:15 a.m.  Tea and Coffee break
11:30 a.m.  Tanika Sarkar (JNU Delhi): “Love, Nation and the World in Tagore’s Writings: Rabindranath as a Rebel in his Times and Ours”
12:15 a.m.  Alokeranjan Dasgupta (SAI Heidelberg): “Why Magnifying the Magnificent: Tagore’s Poetry”

5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
Tagore’s Poems Globally Translated
Multilingual Reading Session of the Dept. of Modern South Asian Languages and Literatures

6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Music Performance
Rita Bandyopadhyay (Cologne):
“Rabindra-Sangit: Performance of Songs Composed in Germany”
Introduced by Alokeranjan Dasgupta (SAI Heidelberg)

Beginning at 8:00 p.m.
Summer Party of the SAI