Speaker: Dr. Mara Matta ( Associate Professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Rome 'Sapienza')

Date of Talk: 24.01.2024

Time: 4 pm- 6 pm

Place: R03 (Seminarraum, access from the courtyard)

In March 1996, Bangladesh inaugurated the Liberation War Museum in Dhaka. While the online introduction to the museum underscores 1947 as an unfortunate event leading to the "unnatural separation of Bengali society on the basis of religion" and the creation of an "unrealistic and dysfunctional state," specific references to 1947 in relation to 1971 and the establishment of Bangladesh are notably scarce. Despite the pride in narrating Bangladesh's history and the Liberation War of 1971, as evident in films produced over the last 50 years by Bangladeshi filmmakers, there is a conspicuous absence of reflection on the memories of the 1947 Partition of Bengal.

This apparent erasure finds reflection not only in the museum's narrative but also in the memories of Bangladeshi youth and migrants in Rome. The recollections and histories of 1947 remain largely forgotten, with Bangladeshis often preferring to celebrate the victory of 1971 over the Pakistani 'enemy' in a hyper-nationalistic manner.This talk will try to look at partition films, migrants' narratives, and the Dhaka Liberation War Museum, viewing them as components of an ongoing effort to construct an archive of shared memories. The deliberate omission of 1947 from Bangladesh's historical discourse is seen as a political strategy rather than stemming from a sense of shame or an attempt to silence memories of the Partition. The dissonances, silences, and absences surrounding the memories of 1947 are of particular concern, as they appear incongruent or even detrimental to the harmonized version of '1971 Bangladesh.' This analysis seeks to explore the implications of such deliberate omissions and the shaping of a collective historical narrative.

Dear students,

From December 01 to February 25, 2024, the Poupou, a Maori

carving from the collection of the Institute of Ethnology, will be on display at the City Museum Tübingen.

We invite you to the workshop discussion on 07.December. The students will present the project here.

Admission is free, please come along.

As part of a seminar, students of ethnology and the MuSa

profile studied the history of the Poupou. The Poupou is an ancestor of the Maori iwi from Tolaga Bay, on the east coast of New Zealand. The

ancestor is still very important to the community there today. The

Institute has a long-standing connection with the iwi. The carving came to Europe via James Cook's first voyage in 1771.

For the research, we have therefore also exchanged ideas with some of her descendants

and thus developed approaches to collaborative exhibiting. The results of the project are now on display in a small workshop exhibition in the (post)colonial laboratory of the Stadtmuseum.

Guided tours (in German) of the exhibition will take place on 14.12, 5 pm and 28.01 and 25.02, 3 pm.

We look forward to your visit!

Best regards,

Johanna Annau

Lisa Priester-Lasch

Markus Schleiter

Speaker: Dr. Ponni Arasu

Date of Talk: 15.11.2023

Time & Place: 6 pm- 8 pm, room 03, castle (access directly from courtyard)

Dr. Ponni Arasu is a feminist historian, researcher, activist, legal practitioner, translator and theatre artist hailing from Chennai and currently based in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. She is trained in History at the University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the University of Toronto. Her academic work is focused on oral histories of contemporary India, with specific focus on social movements such as the Dravidian movement and the women's movement(s). Her PhD research has led her to propose a theoretical framework and methodology called TamilThanmai. She has done research in India and Sri Lanka on the realities of those marginalised on the grounds of their gender, sexuality, caste, class, language, labour, ability, ethnicity, religion etc. for the past twenty years. Her research emerges from and feeds back into movements for social change that she is a part of. Ponni has taught entire courses and guest lectures in the disciplines of history, South Asian studies, Tamil studies, women and gender studies, Caribbean studies and anthropology at the University of Toronto - Canada, University of Minnesota - USA, University of Tubingen - Germany, the Tata Institute of Social Studies, Azim Premji University and the University of Pune in India. She has been evolving pedagogic methods of teaching the history and contemporary realities of Sri Lanka with a focus on rigorous research methodology and critical thinking in non-formal and yet consistent teaching spaces to Tamil-speaking students from all over Sri Lanka. For the past three years she has undertaken research projects in Sri Lanka including on women farmers' collectives; lives and movements for change of women living with disabilities in eastern Sri Lanka; the present realities of LGBTQIA+ individuals and on the status of sex workers. She has produced theatre work with collaborators in India and Sri Lanka on a range of issues which are grounded in using the arts to further the important process of making histories visible and accessible to all. Ponni is also an expressive arts therapist practicing primarily in Tamil among women and queer folks from marginalised communities in India and Sri Lanka. She is currently a Global Encounters Fellow at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tubingen pursuing research on the life of goddess Mariamman among descendants of largely Dalit Tamil indentured workers in Port of Spain, Trinidad and among communities in Tamilnadu. She hopes to bring TamilThanmai as theory and method to this work.

Dear Museum Enthusiast,

The World Culture Museum is open again! Every Wednesday between 10 am and 2 pm you can visit the museum of the ethnological collection in the Fünfeckturm.

Three exhibitions of the institute's collections can be found there: pottery from Peru, tapa fabrics from the Pacific and Malanggan carvings from New Ireland. More information can be found here: www.unimuseum.uni-tuebingen.de/de/sammlungen/ethnologische-sammlung. Students of Uni Tübingen have free entry into the entire MUT!

In addition to the exhibition, I am available to answer questions or discuss issues related to museum anthropology and postcolonial debates. Those who would like to work on the collection as part of their course work will have the opportunity to request research in our collection system at that time.

Otherwise, you can reach me through my Email: johanna.annau@student.uni-tuebingen.de

I hope to see you then,

Johanna Annau