Events

Our events are usually free, open to the public, and benefit from a wide participation – please email us for more information, watch our website and Facebook page, or join our program email list to receive event notices and the eNewsletters!

2023 Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia
Identity and Cultural Dissonance
March 31st, 2023 and April 1st, 2023
University at Buffalo, SUNY

The University at Buffalo, SUNY, is proud to hold its fifth annual Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia. We invite papers on the theme of “Identity and Cultural Dissonance,” which may be interpreted broadly in its social or political sense. The quintessential struggle with identity that the South Asian diaspora experience correlates to the importance of seeking out and understanding one’s origins. The 2023 Rustgi conference will feature a keynote lecture from Council Member Shahana Hanif, a Bangladeshi American serving on the New York City Council for the 39th District, representing the divisions of Kensington, Borough Park, Windsor Terrace, and more. Her work in the community extends beyond her career as a council member: she has contributed to Participatory Budgeting and served as a tenants’ rights organizer and advocate for gender justice.

We welcome undergraduate participants studying South Asia from all disciplines to submit proposals, preferably but not necessarily working on any topic relating to the theme. Possible topics of discussion include:

• Identities in the diaspora
• Identity in religion
• Gender and identity
• Fashion in identity
• Identity and public health
• Identity and politics
• Online and offline identities
• Names and identity
• Burdens of representation
• Appropriation
• Intersectionality

This list of suggestions is by no means exhaustive. We encourage papers that explore sociopolitical issues, communities, or theories stemming from under-represented perspectives. We shall organize panels around presentations addressing similar issues that draw from various disciplinary perspectives, including the social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, management, humanities, fine arts, and others.

Please visit https://bit.ly/rustgisubmissions2023 to submit proposals.

Format

The conference will be held on Friday, March 31 and Saturday, April 1, 2023. Student presenters should plan 15- minute presentations. Each panel will include 30 minutes for discussion. Though the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may require the conference organizers to shift the conference online, we have every hope of holding the event in person.

Deadline

Proposals, including 250-word abstracts and the contact information of a faculty supervisor, must be submitted via the online submission portal (https://bit.ly/rustgisubmissions2023) by Sunday, January 8, 2023.

When submitting abstracts, applicants must affirm that they will be enrolled as undergraduate students at the time of the conference. Those in graduate programs or not currently enrolled in an undergraduate program will not be permitted to present. The organizers reserve the right to confirm student status with their advisor and home institution.

Funding and Accommodations

We are able to provide a limited number of presenters with a travel subvention of up to US$300. Accepted participants who attend in person will also be provided with individual hotel accommodations. The University at Buffalo cannot provide any additional assistance or guidance to international applicants seeking entry into the United States.

Inquiries

Please contact southasiaundergradconf@gmail.com for more information about the conference.

To view past conference programs, please visit

• http://bit.ly/rustgi2018
•  http://bit.ly/rustgiprogram2019
•  http://bit.ly/rustgiprogram2021
•  https://bit.ly/rustgiprogram2022

The fourth annual Rustgi South Asian Undergraduate Research Conference is made possible by a generous gift from the families of Dr. Vinod Rustgi and Dr. Anil Rustgi as well as funding from the University at Buffalo Office of International Education.

Asian Studies Co-Sponsor Event
November 14th, 2022 from 9:00am-noon at 107 Capen

Please join us for the Symposium on Reimagining International Education in/through the Global Pandemic, co-sponsored by the UB Vice Provost’s Office for International Education, Graduate School of Education, Asian Studies Program, and the Department of Indigenous Studies, on November 14th from 9-noon, at 107 Capen.

Symposium theme: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted, upended, and transformed the meaning and praxis of international education. How have scholars and practitioners in international and comparative education engaged with the global education emergency? What new questions are being asked to understand, challenge, and address the myriad, shifting educational challenges? How has the pandemic compounded the existing knowledge paradigms, methodological assumptions, and research imaginations in international and comparative education? This symposium hopes to bring a group of multidisciplinary education scholars to shed light on the future(s) of international education post-COVID.

(Mis)Information 

April 29 and 30, 2022

University at Buffalo, SUNY

The University at Buffalo, SUNY, is proud to hold its fourth annual Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia. We invite papers on the theme of “(Mis)information,” which may be interpreted broadly in its social or political sense. The echoes of misinformation ring in all our ears today as we interact with information endlessly. Regardless of whether it is inadvertent or purposeful, the spread of misinformation has affected how we communicate and process “truths” in our world. The 2022 Rustgi conference will feature a keynote lecture from novelist, essayist, and journalist Dr. Michael Muhammad Knight, Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Central Florida. As a scholar, Knight has explored misinformation by contending with prominent descriptions of Islam in media, dissecting concepts of religious othering both within and outside of the Muslim community. His works include The Taqwacores, Why I Am a Five Percenter, and Magic in Islam.

We welcome undergraduate participants studying South Asia from all disciplines to submit proposals, preferably but not necessarily working on any topic relating to the theme. Possible topics of discussion include: 

• Censorship (of journalism and activist voices)
• Role of information in religious conflicts
• Disinformation 
• Digital literacy 
• Institutions that diffuse information 
• Determinants of beliefs arising from information 
• Future of misinformation
• Ethics of information dissemination

This list of suggestions is by no means exhaustive. We encourage papers that explore sociopolitical issues, communities, or theories stemming from under-represented perspectives. We shall organize panels around presentations addressing similar issues that draw from various disciplinary perspectives, including the social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, management, humanities, fine arts, and others. 

Please visit https://bit.ly/rustgisubmissions2022 to submit proposals.

Format

The conference will be held on Friday, April 29 and Saturday, April 30, 2022. Student presenters should plan for 15-minute presentations. Each panel will include 30 minutes for discussion. Though the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may require the conference organizers to shift the conference online, we have every hope of holding the event in person.  

Deadline

Proposals, including 250-word abstracts and the contact information of a faculty supervisor, must be submitted via the online submissions portal (https://bit.ly/rustgisubmissions2022) by Sunday, February 20, 2022.

When submitting abstracts, applicants must affirm that they will be enrolled as undergraduate students at the time of the conference. Those in graduate programs or not currently enrolled in an undergraduate program will not be permitted to present. The organizers reserve the right to confirm student status with their advisor and home institution.

Funding and Accommodations

We are able to provide a limited number of presenters with a travel subvention of up to US$200. Accepted participants who attend in person will also be provided with shared hotel accommodations. The University at Buffalo cannot provide any additional assistance or guidance to international applicants seeking entry into the United States. 

Inquiries

Please contact rustgiconference@buffalo.edu for more information about the conference.

To view past conference programs, please visit 

• http://bit.ly/rustgi2018   
• http://bit.ly/rustgiprogram2019​​ 
• http://bit.ly/rustgiprogram2021

The fourth annual Rustgi South Asian Undergraduate Research Conference is made possible by a generous gift from the families of Dr. Vinod Rustgi and Dr. Anil Rustgi as well as funding from the University at Buffalo Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, UB Community for Global Health Equity, UB Humanities Institute, and UB Office of International Education. 

Our Asian Studies Program hosts, sponsors, and cosponsors scholarly, artistic, and student-oriented events across campus and beyond!

The University at Buffalo Humanities Institute Research Workshop on Translation will host Dr. Jennifer Dubrow (University of Washington-Seattle) for an online public lecture, "Characters to Resist Modernity in the Short Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto." The event will take place on Zoom 2 - 3:30 pm EDT Monday, May 9, 2022. To register for this talk and download three brief English translations of short stories by Manto, please visit https://bit.ly/dubrowtranslationzone. 

This talk introduces the work of Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955), whom Salman Rushdie called “the undisputed master of the modern Indian short story.” Now known for his radical stories of prostitutes and Partition, Manto penned indelible characters who refused South Asian modernity’s categories of Hindu/Muslim, pimp/prostitute, and man/woman. Through a reading of some of Manto’s most well-known and controversial stories, this talk reveals how Manto used a character-driven style to critique colonial modernity, and then fragmented this style to interrogate sexuality after Partition.

Jennifer Dubrow is Associate Professor of Urdu at the University of Washington-Seattle. She is the author of Cosmopolitan Dreams: The Making of Modern Urdu Literary Culture in Colonial South Asia, published by the University of Hawai’i Press in 2018 and Permanent Black in 2019. She is currently writing a book on Urdu modernism in South Asia from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Theme: Asian Lives/Asian Studies in the Pandemic and Post Pandemic EraIdentity

Date: October 1 - 2, 2021

Format: Hybrid

Website: Official 2021 NYCAS Website.

To view the event program, please click here