Uppsala University
Schedule, Fall 2022
Time: Thursdays at 10.15-12.00 Venue: Campus Engelska parken, room ENG 3-2028 The seminars are conducted in English. For more information and readings, contact mats.hyvonen@antro.uu.se Previous seminar series: Schedule, spring 2016 Schedule, fall 2016 Schedule, spring 2017 Schedule, fall 2017 Schedule, spring 2018 Schedule, fall 2018 Schedule, spring 2019 Schedule, fall 2019 Schedule, spring 2020 Schedule, fall 2020
Schedule, spring 2021
Schedule, fall 2021
Schedule, spring 2022
Webinar 3 in the webinar series “Clashing Vulnerabilities”: Date (in September) TBA
YAMINI NARAYANAN, “Mother Dairy: A More-Than-Human Politics of India’s Cow Protectionism”

Hindu ultranationalist politics (called Hindutva) seeks to narrowly reconceptualise India as a “Hindu state”. Cows figure prominently in this imaginary. India criminalises cow slaughter, based on the well-known Hindu reverence of cows as sacred. However, during the reign of the ruling Hindu nationalist party, BJP, India has also become one of the largest global producers of beef. This talk addresses this seeming puzzle by demonstrating how the cow-worshipping, beef-criminalising, aspirational Hindu state obscures an industrial scale of underground cow slaughter. Unwanted dairy cows are illicitly transported to slaughterhouses, in ways that create and exploit the vulnerabilities both of ‘low’ caste Dalits and Muslims (who perform the risky, racialized labour of slaughtering cows), and the cows, which are racialized and Hinduised. Seeking to overcome the anthropocentrism of the people vs. animals impasse that characterises much political debate, I conclude with some thoughts on a post-dairy society, one based on an ethic that is anti-caste, anti-anthropocentric, and anti-Hindutva.
Theme “Failure”, seminar 2: Thursday September 15, in room 3-2028, English Park Campus
More info TBA
Theme “Failure”, seminar 3: Thursday October 13, in room 3-2028, English Park Campus
More info TBA
Half-time seminar, Ida Grönroos: Tuesday December 20, in room 4-2007, English Park Campus
More info TBA
English Park Campus – Centre for the humanities: http://www.engelskaparken.uu.se/?languageId=1