From dak at sarai.net Wed Dec 3 22:34:42 2003 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 22:34:42 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] DECEMBER 2003 Message-ID: <200312032234.42145.dak@sarai.net> CONTENTS: December 2003 17th Media Publics & Practices Seminar: Contestational Science, Data Surveillance and Robotic Art 19th Sonidos Locales: Local Soundings - Contemporary Sound Art from Mexico 22nd Delhi Seminar Series: Arts and Patronage in Post-Partition Delhi Film @ Sarai 11th The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, dir. Ray Muller 12th The Crying Game, dir. Neil Jordan 13th Chhalia, dir. Manmohan Desai OR Dharamputra, dir. Yash Chopra 26th Park Fiction...desire will leave home and take to the streets, dir. ` Margit Czenki Announcement Call For Applications - Student Stipends For Research on The City 1st January 2004 Deadline for Abstracts Workshop Report New Technologies, Social Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Friends, As you know we are organising a workshop on Film and History on 11th, 12th and 13th of December at Sarai. We have a limited number of seats available for those of you who are interested in participating in the discussions. Do regsiter with me (ranita at sarai.net) by Monday, 8th December, if you are interested in attending the workshop. Please note that we will be unable to entertain any requests for registration after the 8th of December. The film screenings, on all the three days are open – for details and timings please scroll below. --------------------------------------------------------------------- I. URBAN CULTURES & POLITICS: THE DELHI SEMINAR SERIES Monday, December 22, 2003, 3:30 pm Arts and Patronage in Post-Partition Delhi Vasudha Dalmia, University of California, Berkeley. --------------------------------------------------------------------- II. MEDIA PUBLICS & PRACTICES SEMINAR SERIES Wednesday, December 17, 2003, 3:30 pm Contestational Science, Data-Surveillance and Robotic Art Beatriz da Costa, University of California, Irvine ----------------------------------------------------------------------- III. Friday, December 19, 2003, 5:00 pm Sonidos Locales: Local Soundings - Contemporary Sound Art from Mexico An Evening of Presentations by Three Sound Artists from Mexico City Ariel Guzik Glantz, Cristian Cárdenas & Luis Alberto Murillo Ruiz Organised in collaboration with the Cultural Section of the Embassy of Mexico, New Delhi. Sound as an independent form of media art practice is increasingly getting noticed for its inherent possibilities of expressive range, imaginative depth and formal subtlety. Sound art encompasses a wide register of modes - from the documentary, to musical, poetic, speech laced and fantastical forms. Sound art includes remixes of found urban fragments, the riffs of poetic speech, amplifications of realities outside our auditory range and soundings of cities, localities and neighbourhoods, near as well as distant. The Sarai Programme's active interest in different media forms is what impels us to explore interactions between practitioners and audiences in this exciting new medium. Sonidos Locales, an evening of presentations by three sound artists from Mexico City is part of a series of occasional sound art events at Sarai. The title, Sonidos Locales, suggests the locatedness of sound, as a practice embedded in nature, and in urban communities. Contemporary Sound Art in Mexico City is a dynamic set of practices with a diverse repertoire of theme, form and expressive registers. Ariel Guzik Glantz, Cristian Cárdenas and Luis Alberto Murillo Ruiz are three practitioners who, between themselves, contain both the early and pioneering as well as the fresh and contemporary edges of sound art in Mexico. Ariel Guzik Glantz (born 1960) is a pioneering sound artist, scientific investigator and writer working since 1974 in fields as diverse as music, sculpture, electronic engineering, electromagnetic theory, communications, physics, traditional medicine and mathematics. He has designed and built original instruments and sound sculptures, composed original music and soundtracks for film, theatre and dance and has written books and essays on sound. He is the founder of the Laboratory for Investigation on Resonance and Expression in Nature. His recent and ongoing work, The Plasmaht Laboratory, an architectonic and sculptural sound piece and installation that is founded on ideas of resonance, magnetism, feedback and natural harmonic intervals will be performed at the Jantar Mantar in Delhi on the 16th of December. The current iteration of the piece is inspired by the birthing songs of grey whales off the coast of Baja California in Mexico. Ariel Guzik Glantz will talk about the Plasmaht Laboratory as well as his other projects. Cristian Cárdenas (born 1983) is a musician, sound artist and graphic designer. He has worked as a DJ and graphic designer with different organizations and collective groups such as Parador Análogo, Urbe01, Ultradub, Noiselab, Konfort, Igloo and Filtro. He is developing his own aesthetic practice through experimentation with the following genres: dubby techno, dubby house, minimal house as well as click and ID, He has presented his work in museums such as XTeresa Arte Alternativo, Museo de Arte Alameda and Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo in México City. He recently created a CD project for WOW magazine. Together with the poet Carla Faesler he developed the Urbe Probeta Project (a collaborative CD featuring the work of contemporary Mexican poets and musicians) that is also being presented in Delhi. Luis Alberto Murillo Ruiz (born 1972) is devoted to experimental electronic music. He works as a composer, teacher and promoter of experimental electronic music. He teaches software application and production for DJs (from beginners to experts). He collaborates with the magazine DJ Concept and is part of the project Konfort that promotes experimental electronic music. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IV. FILM @ SARAI Thursday, December 11, 2003, 4:30 pm The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993), Directed by Ray Muller Part I: 96 minutes Part II: 92 minutes 'The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl' is a documentary that tells the story of one of the most famous woman film directors of all time. It features extensive interviews with Leni Reifenstahl, most notoriously known for making effective propaganda films for the Nazis. Hitler's master filmmaker is both wonderful and horrible in Ray Muller's 1993 documentary. Known for her films made during the Third Reich, Riefenstahl's story is a controversial one. She is best known for Triumph of the Will, the film made of the 1934 Nazi Party Congress. Olympia, her film on the 1936 Olympic Games was acclaimed in America as one of the world's ten best films. Muller’s documentary opens with images from Reifenstahl's underwater photography, some of the most gorgeous footage of its kind ever produced. This glittering, silent realm appears to be Riefenstahl's final escape from her pariah status in social and artistic circles since her indictment as a Nazi sympathizer at the end of World War II. Imprisoned and released after four years, Riefenstahl was not to be entirely repressed. At the age of 60, she went alone to Africa to live with the Nuba tribe. Several books of her photographs of these tribes were published from 1973 onwards. At the age of 70, she passed a scuba diving test and embarked for the next several decades on an entirely new career of underwater filming -- becoming possibly the oldest diver in the world. The film tries to make sense of this complex figure, and in its three hours-plus running time, it succeeds as much as can be expected with the mysterious Riefenstahl with fascinating, if not unpredictable, results. In the documentary, the remarkably lucid 90-year-old Riefenstahl describes her filmmaking techniques and defends herself against the accusations that have hounded her throughout her life. She claims she was essentially ignorant of inhumane Nazi activities -- for her, art and politics were two separate things. Riefenstahl emerges in some ways a timeless, almost supernaturally powerful character - also tragic and possibly self-deluded. Perhaps the same internal forces that made her create such powerful, lasting art render her incapable of admitting even decades after the fact that she was, at least for a while, a willing architect in the creation of Nazi mythology. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Friday, December 12, 2003, 4:30 pm The Crying Game (1992), 112 minutes Directed by Neil Jordan This film put screenwriter-director Neil Jordan on the international map. The story begins at a carnival in Ireland with British soldier Jody (Forest Whitaker) kidnapped by IRA terrorists Jude (Miranda Richardson) and Fergus (Stephen Rea). Fergus is assigned to guard Jody, and they become friends. After the kidnapping goes horribly wrong, Fergus escapes to London to track down Jody's girlfriend, Dil (Jaye Davidson), to fulfill a promise to Jody and ends up falling in love with her. The only problem--well, it's not the only problem--is Jude has also come to London with news that the IRA is after Fergus and has a dangerous new mission in mind. A sensation during its original release for its controversial plot development, The Crying Game went on to win several awards. Ian Wilson's photography beautifully captures the various locales of London and rural Ireland. Boy George sings the title song, and the rest of the score is by Anne Dudley. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, December 13, 2003, 5:30pm Chhalia OR Dharamputra Chhalia (1960) Directed by Manmohan Desai Chhalia addresses issues which have recently been explored very productively through feminist history: the problems posed by the repatriation and rehabilitation of women after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. The drive to repatriate was complicated by the response of families to the returned women. There was suspicion about what had happened during their years away from home, and social anxiety, too, about how the community would regard the reintegration of the possibly `tainted’ woman. Chhalia’s exploration of this issue rapidly reassures the spectator of the virtue of the female protagonist, Shanti (Nutan). Newly married, she is left behind in Lahore as riots erupt. To her good fortune, a pathan, Khan, (Pran) takes her in and protects her from the marauding Muslim crowd. The pathan is a violent criminal, but is redeemed by his desire that Sakina, his sister, left behind in Delhi, will receive protection if he too affords Shanti with protection. On her return to Delhi, Shanti’s in laws and parents refuse to acknowledge her, the latter with considerable heartbreak. Only Kewal (Rehman), her husband, is willing to sunder ties with his family in order to reunite with his wife. However, he too becomes estranged when he sees that Shanti has a son who bears the name Anwar. The ostracized Shanti contemplates suicide, but is saved from this fate by the Chhaliya of the title, Kapoor’s petty thief. He falls in love with Shanti, and functions as her protector. When he comes to know of her story, he undertakes to reunite the family. The imagery of the Ramayana is deployed here, as it is in other 1950s films including Awara, Raj Kapoor, 1951and, appropriately, the reunion of the couple takes place under the aegis of the Ramlila. In a melodramatic conclusion, Kapoor’s address to the assembled public, and to the dramatis personae, urges an end to the Ram Sita kahani, and oversees the couple united in jointly protecting their child from the falling effigy of Ravana. OR Dharamputra (1961) Directed by Yash Chopra Dharamputra, based on Acharya Chatursen's eponymous novel by the same name is a film which addresses a crucial moment in the history of India- the Partition, and weaves an intricate link between familial ties and religious bigotry. The young Dilip who is brought up in a liberal Hindu household, grows up witnessing the growing divide between the two communities- the Hindus and the Muslims who were living in perfect communion with each other till these differences cropped up as a result of the partisan politics of the time. He turns out to be a Hindu fundamentalist and all Muslims are his enemies even his own neighbours and family friends for a long time. The uneasy truth and tortured realisation of one's identity and ideology surfaces at the melodramatic climax when Dilip is ready to murder his neighbours only to discover facts which will change his worldview forever and leave the viewers questioning their own certitudes ! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, December 26, 2003, 4:30 pm Park Fiction...desire will leave home and take to the streets (1999), 61 minutes Filmcollage by Margit Czenki The abundant paradise of an Arabian garden. Oranges glow from the deepest green. An ultramarine blue arcade. Dreamers listening to promising voices, "Desires will leave home, finish the empire of boredom and make an end to the management of misery". Jubilant fanfare for the water-coloured archives of wishes: a strawberry shaped tree-house, a bathtub tree-house, a dock as swimming pool, a poodle shaped hedge, an open-air cinema, moveable platforms with artificial palm trees, a hedge-maze and a slide over Hafenstrasse. Margit Czenki shows the clever struggle of a small group in Hamburg’s St Pauli locality, carried out from a seemingly inferior position, against a corporate housing project that threatened to take away the local park. The film collage shows the glamorous ideas for a park at the banks of Hamburg's harbour - a park that doesn't exist yet, about art and politics, about nomadic warfare and about radiant desires. About the city - and what it could be. About very different people and the power of a group that produces ideas and works together over a long period of time. Park Fiction is a public art project and a stage for the wishes of a community: a Turkish girl designs a youth-café with letterboxes for teenagers whose letters are controlled by their parents. A Russian couple wants an Avenue of Friendship, lined by rosebushes. And a woman reads park-poetry in her freshly painted flat. The film collage juxtaposes documentary and narrative elements. It is structured by a strain on Parks & Politics - on gardens and their ideological backgrounds. Filmed on Super 8 in Marrakech, Coney Island and St. Pauli, Park Fiction was blown up to 16mm with an outdated trick-camera, later combined with video footage, drawings, suggestive collages and photos. There is no original sound. The image-collage is juxtaposed with an independent sound-collage: Czech pop songs, Los Ninos del Parque and Eissler-samples. The soundtrack is by Ted Gaier and Schorsch Kamerun. Details of films screened as part of the History and Film Workshop on 11th, 12th & 13th December will be available later. Programmes are subject to last-minute changes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ V. ANNOUNCEMENT: Call for Application - Student Stipends For Research on The City Sarai, an interdisciplinary research and practice programme on the city and the media, at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, invites applications for short term studentships to facilitate research on Urban life in South Asia. The Studentship will provide candidates with Rs.10,000 for the preparation of a research paper to be presented at a workshop in June2003. Selected scholars will also get an opportunity to discuss their ongoing research in an initial workshop to be held in March 2003. Sarai will take care of travel, boarding and lodging for attending workshops. The candidates may be from any discipline and should be enrolled in Master, M.Phil or Ph.D programme. List of indicative themes: Urban Histories Architecture and Spatial Transformations Modernist Planning Alternative Urban Visions Urban Memory and Narratives of Violence Urban Ecologies Literature and Urbanism Cinema and the City Visual Culture The Future of Public Space Media Practices and the City Labour in the City Please send your application along with C.V. and one page abstract indicating the scope, nature and approach of proposed research to Ranita Chatterjee Programme Coordinator, Sarai, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054. ph: 23960040, 23942199 (extn.307). Inquiries: sadan at sarai.net DEADLINE for Application: 01 January, 2004. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VI. WORKSHOP REPORT: New Technologies, Social Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights November 20-21, 2003 The workshop hosted by Sarai in collaboration with Hivos and Alternative Law Forum (ALF) brought together lawyers, free software practitioners, activists, students and NGO's to discuss how intellectual property regimes are affecting knowledge production and distribution. Various debates on biodiversity and the production and distribution of knowledge via new technologies are increasingly getting wrapped up in intellectual property regimes. The workshop aimed to bring together people in the open source software movement and those working with issues of bio-diversity, to look beyond boundaries and engage critically with each other. Participants included speakers from Mahiti Infotech; Genderchangers; One World South Asia; Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems; International Collective in Support of Fishworkers; Anthra; Genecamp; Toxics Link; and those from Sarai, Hivos and ALF. The audio archive of the workshop will be available soon. That's all for this month. Cheers, Ranita The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 Tel: (+91) 11 23960040 (+91) 11 23942199, ext 307 Fax: (+91) 11 23943450 www.sarai.net From dak at sarai.net Tue Dec 9 18:04:45 2003 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 18:04:45 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] FILM @ SARAI Message-ID: <200312091804.45627.dak@sarai.net> Dear Friends, This is the final film schedule for the month. You will notice that there is a change from the schedule sent out earlier on this list - we will screen Chhalia on December 12th and The Crying Game on December 13th. Cheers, Ranita FILM @ SARAI SCREENINGS FOR FILM AND HISTORY WORKSHOP Thursday, December 11, 2003, 4:30 pm The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993), Directed by Ray Muller Part I: 96 minutes Part II: 92 minutes 'The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl' is a documentary that tells the story of one of the most famous woman film directors of all time. It features extensive interviews with Leni Reifenstahl, most notoriously known for making effective propaganda films for the Nazis. Hitler's master filmmaker is both wonderful and horrible in Ray Muller's 1993 documentary. Known for her films made during the Third Reich, Riefenstahl's story is a controversial one. She is best known for Triumph of the Will, the film made of the 1934 Nazi Party Congress. Olympia, her film on the 1936 Olympic Games was acclaimed in America as one of the world's ten best films. Muller's documentary opens with images from Reifenstahl's underwater photography, some of the most gorgeous footage of its kind ever produced. This glittering, silent realm appears to be Riefenstahl's final escape from her pariah status in social and artistic circles since her indictment as a Nazi sympathizer at the end of World War II. Imprisoned and released after four years, Riefenstahl was not to be entirely repressed. At the age of 60, she went alone to Africa to live with the Nuba tribe. Several books of her photographs of these tribes were published from 1973 onwards. At the age of 70, she passed a scuba diving test and embarked for the next several decades on an entirely new career of underwater filming -- becoming possibly the oldest diver in the world. The film tries to make sense of this complex figure, and in its three hours-plus running time, it succeeds as much as can be expected with the mysterious Riefenstahl with fascinating, if not unpredictable, results. In the documentary, the remarkably lucid 90-year-old Riefenstahl describes her filmmaking techniques and defends herself against the accusations that have hounded her throughout her life. She claims she was essentially ignorant of inhumane Nazi activities -- for her, art and politics were two separate things. Riefenstahl emerges in some ways a timeless, almost supernaturally powerful character - also tragic and possibly self-deluded. Perhaps the same internal forces that made her create such powerful, lasting art render her incapable of admitting even decades after the fact that she was, at least for a while, a willing architect in the creation of Nazi mythology. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Friday, December 12, 2003, 4:30 pm Chhalia (1960) Directed by Manmohan Desai Chhalia addresses issues which have recently been explored very productively through feminist history: the problems posed by the repatriation and rehabilitation of women after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. The drive to repatriate was complicated by the response of families to the returned women. There was suspicion about what had happened during their years away from home, and social anxiety, too, about how the community would regard the reintegration of the possibly `tainted' woman. Chhalia's exploration of this issue rapidly reassures the spectator of the virtue of the female protagonist, Shanti (Nutan). Newly married, she is left behind in Lahore as riots erupt. To her good fortune, a pathan, Khan, (Pran) takes her in and protects her from the marauding Muslim crowd. The pathan is a violent criminal, but is redeemed by his desire that Sakina, his sister, left behind in Delhi, will receive protection if he too affords Shanti with protection. On her return to Delhi, Shanti's in laws and parents refuse to acknowledge her, the latter with considerable heartbreak. Only Kewal (Rehman), her husband, is willing to sunder ties with his family in order to reunite with his wife. However, he too becomes estranged when he sees that Shanti has a son who bears the name Anwar. The ostracized Shanti contemplates suicide, but is saved from this fate by the Chhaliya of the title, Kapoor's petty thief. He falls in love with Shanti, and functions as her protector. When he comes to know of her story, he undertakes to reunite the family. The imagery of the Ramayana is deployed here, as it is in other 1950s films including Awara, Raj Kapoor, 1951and, appropriately, the reunion of the couple takes place under the aegis of the Ramlila. In a melodramatic conclusion, Kapoor's address to the assembled public, and to the dramatis personae, urges an end to the Ram Sita kahani, and oversees the couple united in jointly protecting their child from the falling effigy of Ravana. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, December 13, 2003, 5:30pm The Crying Game (1992), 112 minutes Directed by Neil Jordan This film put screenwriter-director Neil Jordan on the international map. The story begins at a carnival in Ireland with British soldier Jody (Forest Whitaker) kidnapped by IRA terrorists Jude (Miranda Richardson) and Fergus (Stephen Rea). Fergus is assigned to guard Jody, and they become friends. After the kidnapping goes horribly wrong, Fergus escapes to London to track down Jody's girlfriend, Dil (Jaye Davidson), to fulfill a promise to Jody and ends up falling in love with her. The only problem--well, it's not the only problem--is Jude has also come to London with news that the IRA is after Fergus and has a dangerous new mission in mind. A sensation during its original release for its controversial plot development, The Crying Game went on to win several awards. Ian Wilson's photography beautifully captures the various locales of London and rural Ireland. Boy George sings the title song, and the rest of the score is by Anne Dudley. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OTHER SCREENINGS Friday, December 26, 2003, 4:30 pm Park Fiction...desire will leave home and take to the streets (1999), 61 minutes Filmcollage by Margit Czenki The abundant paradise of an Arabian garden. Oranges glow from the deepest green. An ultramarine blue arcade. Dreamers listening to promising voices, "Desires will leave home, finish the empire of boredom and make an end to the management of misery". Jubilant fanfare for the water-coloured archives of wishes: a strawberry shaped tree-house, a bathtub tree-house, a dock as swimming pool, a poodle shaped hedge, an open-air cinema, moveable platforms with artificial palm trees, a hedge-maze and a slide over Hafenstrasse. Margit Czenki shows the clever struggle of a small group in Hamburg's St Pauli locality, carried out from a seemingly inferior position, against a corporate housing project that threatened to take away the local park. The film collage shows the glamorous ideas for a park at the banks of Hamburg's harbour - a park that doesn't exist yet, about art and politics, about nomadic warfare and about radiant desires. About the city - and what it could be. About very different people and the power of a group that produces ideas and works together over a long period of time. Park Fiction is a public art project and a stage for the wishes of a community: a Turkish girl designs a youth-café with letterboxes for teenagers whose letters are controlled by their parents. A Russian couple wants an Avenue of Friendship, lined by rosebushes. And a woman reads park-poetry in her freshly painted flat. The film collage juxtaposes documentary and narrative elements. It is structured by a strain on Parks & Politics - on gardens and their ideological backgrounds. Filmed on Super 8 in Marrakech, Coney Island and St. Pauli, Park Fiction was blown up to 16mm with an outdated trick-camera, later combined with video footage, drawings, suggestive collages and photos. There is no original sound. The image-collage is juxtaposed with an independent sound-collage: Czech pop songs, Los Ninos del Parque and Eissler-samples. The soundtrack is by Ted Gaier and Schorsch Kamerun. The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 Tel: (+91) 11 23960040 (+91) 11 23942199, ext 307 Fax: (+91) 11 23943450 www.sarai.net From dak at sarai.net Sun Dec 21 18:29:42 2003 From: dak at sarai.net (Sarai Programme) Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 18:29:42 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] Delhi Seminar Series Reminder Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20031221182836.0239d2c8@mail.sarai.net> Seminar Reminder! URBAN CULTURES & POLITICS: THE DELHI SEMINAR SERIES Monday, December 22, 2003, 3:30 pm Arts and Patronage in Post-Partition Delhi Vasudha Dalmia, University of California, Berkeley. From dak at sarai.net Mon Dec 22 23:05:47 2003 From: dak at sarai.net (Sarai Programme) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 23:05:47 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] Call for Abstracts: Language, Culture , Urban Publics Workshop Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20031222230256.048fe2b0@pop3.norton.antivirus> Call for Abstracts: Workshop: Language, Culture and Urban Publics: April 1st -3rd, 2004. This workshop will engage in a dialogue between research into histories of print cultures and the new linguistic practices in contemporary media and urban spaces. The workshop is intended to revisit the debates on identity and politics together with attention to forms from magazines to cassettes to films and television as well as new performative spaces such as call centers discussion-lists and chat rooms. Our premise is that these dialogues would provide diverse critical vantage points from which to engage with issues of language and culture as they enable various strategies of dwelling in and imagining the city. Older forms of expression in print and speech have been under significant pressure in the contemporary with the emergence of electronic communication, leading to both innovation and anxiety. The workshop will focus on content, form, styles and circulation of linguistic cultures. The primary focus will be on South Asia, though we welcome proposals on other regions that provide a comparative perspective. While the focus of the workshop is the contemporary transformations, it would perhaps be useful to see the contemporary as the contested site of continuity as well discontinuity. Suggested Themes: Histories of urban print cultures - Popular print forms: pamphlets, 'pulp fiction', little magazines and small towns. Urban imaginaries in literary cultures. Radio and Broadcasting: 'National language' and local publics, contemporary FM cultures. Print and the challenge of contemporary media forms: television, mobile, SMS, hybrid forms, copy culture. Music: cassette cultures, regional and migrant music, parody. Styles of Engagement: Accents, idioms, slang, performative speech and identity: from the streets to chat rooms to Call Centres. Speech as Sales pitch: advertisement, propaganda, and bazaar language. Language as Politics Poetics of Adaptation Please send 200-300 word abstracts to language at sarai.net by January 20th, 2004.. We will cover travel and board of South Asian participants who are selected to present at the workshop. In the case of international presenters we will cover all local costs, in rare cases of people without institutional support we might support travel.