JSIS STUDENT SERVICES - Jackson School of International ...

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STUDENT SERVICES BULLETIN
Professor Christian Novetzke – receives NEH Fellowship
Research Project: The Brahmin Double: Caste, Religion, Performance, and
the Political Public in Maharashtra, India, 1200 CE to the Present
Critiques of caste and 'Brahminism' featured prominently in the social, political and
intellectual life of colonial India. It is often assumed that Brahmins took the lead in developing
such critiques as a consequence of the ideological influences of liberalism
and nationalism. But how do we account for such critiques, articulated by Brahmins
themselves, in India's pre-colonial centuries? My project will explore 'religious' materials
from the thirteenth to 1818 in which Brahmins appear to be agents in the creation of
anti-caste and in particular anti-Brahmin sentiment. I situate this Brahminical anti-caste
and anti-Brahmin discourse within a largely performative public sphere, where Brahmins
balanced their role as 'knowledge specialists' in heterogeneous social, religious,
and cultural contexts where they were a significant minority. Here, Brahmin advocates
of anti-Brahmin and anti-caste sentiment offered a 'double', a discursively constructed
'Brahmin', thus deflecting or diffusing criticism, and enabling the Brahmin performer or
composer to maintain a position of importance as a Brahmin in the larger pre-modern
public sphere. I argue that this history of Brahminical anti-Brahminism in Marathi is
one important strand in the genealogy of the theatre of caste politics in postcolonial
India today. This work challenges the genealogy of Habermasian public sphere analyses
that situate this social form within literate, modern, Westernized contexts; instead,
I propose the existence a vibrant and consistent political public in cultural performative
venues over eight centuries in India.
JSIS Faculty in the News
On the death of Kim Jong-il—
King 5 interview with Professor Don Hellmann.
he Classroom As A 'Sacred Site' in The Daily —with Professor James Wellman
he History Of Hanukkah, on KUOW—with Professor Noam Pianko
About the Jackson School Honors Program —submitted by Honors Program
Each quarter, the University Honors Program showcases the remarkable work done by Honors students and faculty
within their majors. While the programs vary from discipline to discipline, most typically conclude in a major research
or artistic project and all challenge the students to bring their work to the next level. Jackson School Honors was featured
most recently.
Alyson Dimmitt
B.A. 2 8 - International Studies (General)
B.A. 2 8 - Communit , Environment, and Planning
The Jackson School of International Studies Honors Program centers around a year-long research
thesis, a rare chance in undergraduate education to experience the sweat and blood of the
full research process. When my peers and I first sat around the table as a Jackson School Honors
cohort, we had plenty of impassioned ideas about what we might research, all of them overly
broad and hazy. Professor Deborah Porter invested her mind and heart in developing our research
and writing skills and fostering our intellectual rigor. We learned to read more deeply, write
more clearly, critique more precisely, and understand data more creatively and thoroughly. We
had the chance to throw ourselves into questions we cared about, and to see each other's work
transform into well-defined academic writings.
I had many wonderful professors in the Jackson School and Honors Program, but nowhere else
did I experience such investment and accountability in my academic efforts. My advisors spent hours during that year working with
me on my writing and ideas. Perhaps most rewarding was sharing the process with a group of peers, learning to give each other
effective feedback and letting them teach me about places and ideas they were so passionate about - cooperatives in Venezuela,
women's health programs in rural India, soccer in China.
The process and skills I learned have been fundamental to me since I left the classroom, preparing me to listen to clients as a legal
advocate, to conduct fieldwork abroad, and now to study law. But perhaps most importantly, my advisors and cohort taught me
to keep my intellectual pursuits true to my own heart and interests. Students leave the Jackson School Honors Program not only
with the capacity to sustain research, but also the integrity to seek true answers to meaningful questions in whatever field they will
work.