"On Touching and Not Touching: Caste and the problem of Ethics"

Introduction: Sambudha Sen (Shiv Nadar University)
Panel Discussion: V. Sanil (IIT, Delhi), P. UdayaKumar (JNU, New Delhi) and Gopal Guru, (Editor, EPW)
Q&A
Concluding Remarks: Prof. Ajay Dandekar (Shiv Nadar University)

Shiv Nadar University celebrates the recent publication of the Late Professor Aniket Jaaware's book Practicing Caste: On Touching and Not Touching (Fordham University Press, New York and Orient Blackswan, India, December 2018). After a brief introduction to Professor Jawaare's life and work, three eminent academics Professors Udaya Kumar (JNU), V. Sanil (IIT, Delhi) and Gopal Guru (Editor, EPW) will discuss Practicing Caste. The panelists will answer questions and engage in discussions initiated by the audience after they've made their presentations.

About the book

Courtesy, Fordham University Press

Practicing Caste attempts a fundamental break from the tradition of caste studies, showing the limits of the historical, sociological, political, and moral categories through which it has usually been discussed. Engaging with the resources that phenomenology, structuralism and poststructuralism offer to our thinking of the body, Jaaware helps us to illuminate the ethical relations that caste entails, especially around its injunctions concerning touching. The resulting insights offer new ways about sociality that are pertinent not only to India but also to thinking the common on a planetary basis.


For additional information, please write to: sambudha.sen@snu.edu.in