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CSAS Lecture Series | Inordinate Knowledge: Intimacy and Publicity in a Slum in Delhi

Veena Das, Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University
Friday, October 20, 2017
4:00-5:30 PM
Room 110 Weiser Hall Map
This paper starts with a local incident of the abduction of a young girl, her bodily mutilation, and her eventual return to her parents. I explore the movement of stories around this crime and ask what is it that her kin and the neighbors knew and the interplay between knowledge and ignorance. The paper goes on to other cases such as those of domestic violence and sexual abuse, to ask a question that carries a compelling force for me –viz,. when we are unable to see what is before our eyes, is this a case of survival, aspect blindness, or soul blindness? Do these differences matter?

Veena Das is Krieger- Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University. Her most recent books are Affliction: Health, Disease Poverty (2015), Four Lectures in Ethics (2015,co-authored), Living and Dying in the Contemporary World (co-edited with Clara Han). Her forthcoming book is entitled, Textures of the Ordinary: Anthropological Essays: Wittgensteinian Traces). Das is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Academy of Scientists from Developing Countries and is the recipient of Honorary Doctorates from the University of Chicago, University of Edinburgh, Bern University, and has been unanimously elected to receive an honorary doctorate from Durham University in June 2018. She. has received the Ghurye Award, the Anders Retzius Gold Medal, and the Nessim Habif International Prize , in additional to Distinguished Alumna Awards from Indraprastha College, and from Delhi School of Economics.
Building: Weiser Hall
Event Type: Lecture / Discussion
Tags: Anthropology, Asia, India
Source: Happening @ Michigan from Center for South Asian Studies, International Institute, Asian Languages and Cultures