First Annual Kailath Colloquia, April 24-27, 1997

Re-Presenting Women: Women in the Literary, Performing and Visual Arts of India was a three day workshop sponsored by grants from the Sarah Kailath Chair in India Studies, the University of California Humanities Research Institute and the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities. The purpose of the workshop was two-fold: to examine the contributions of women in the arts and literature of India and to provide a scholarly critique of the representation of women in the arts and literatures of India.

The colloquia began with a dinner honoring Professor Robert P. Goldman, the first holder of the Sarah Kailath Chair in India Studies. The Sarah Kailath Chair in India Studies also allows the Center for South Asia Studies to appoint a Kailath Fellow. The Kailath Fellow is expected to pursue research in India studies with a substantial public component.

The first Kailath Fellow for the 1996-97 academic year was Dr. Sally Sutherland-Goldman who teaches Sanskrit in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies. The workshop "Re-Presenting Women: Women and the Literary, Performing and Visual Arts of India" was the culmination of Dr. Sutherland-Goldman's project for this past academic year.

Scholars from art history, literature, ethno-musicology and film studies presented papers on various topics including, female impersonation in Parsi theater, eighteenth century Kurvanci dance drama and Madhur Jaffrey's cookbooks. Prof. Meenakshi Mukherjee from Jawaharlal Nehru University, the holder of the Chair in India Studies lectureship for the Spring 97 term, presented a special lecture entitled "Objects of Desire to Desirer of Objects: The Other Paradigm".

Other workshop participants included: Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Jennifer Post, Purnima Mankekar, Arvind Rajagopal, Tryna Lyons, Victoria Rivers, Sally Sutherland-Goldman, Kathy Hansen, Janet O'Shea, Parama Roy, Indira Peterson, Amelia Dutta, Daniel Neuman, Aditya Behl, Mary Storm, Lalitha Gopalan, Robert Goldman, Inderpal Grewal, Bonnie Wade, Vijaya Nagarajan and Simona Sawhney.