Jul 12 2024 to Jul 12 2024 6:30 p.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

This panel discussion is a conversation between two authors who also share a teacher-student relationship. Nivedita Menon will speak on her latest book, Secularism as Misdirection, while Debangana Chatterjee, her student from Jawaharlal Nehru University, will present her first book, Lives of Circumcised and Veiled Women. The intellectual pursuits of two individuals, which converged in classroom discussions once, complete a full circle of knowledge creation. The conversation aims to probe religion and secularism using gender as the focal point. The conversation aims to probe religion and secularism using gender as the focal point. Menon’s title alludes to perspectives from the global South and India. In her argument, secularism performs a “misdirection” as in the performance of a magic trick. It simultaneously hypervisiblises women and religion and obscures caste, capitalism, and the non-individuated, non-rational self. Chatterjee’s work sheds light on the politics of representation and the process of exoticising women’s bodies in knowledge production; presenting the politics which cloaks the ‘misdirection’. It brings out the intricacies of representational discourses around cultural practices of female circumcision and Islamic veiling. The conversation will be moderated by Rinku Lamba, followed by a Q&A session with the audience.