Dear list members,
There is a short extension the 23rd Annual South Asia Graduate Student
Conference, (University of Chicago, March 5th-6th 2026).
The new deadline for the submission of abstracts is Sunday December 14th, 2025.
Details of the call are shared below.
Resonant Boundaries: (Inter)disciplinarity in and about South Asia.
The organizing committee of the South Asia Graduate Student Conference
(SAGSC-XXIII) at the University of Chicago is pleased to announce its
twenty-third annual conference: “Resonant Boundaries: (Inter)disciplinarity in
and about South Asia.” This year’s conference will take place on March 5th-6th,
2026. We cordially invite papers from independent scholars and graduate
students at any stage of study and in any discipline from universities across
the world.
This conference seeks to explore the working interfaces and complex
intertwinings of different textual canons, systems of knowledge,
epistemological approaches and practices, mechanisms of community creation and
affiliation, and trajectories of knowledge dissemination in scholarly research
pertaining to South Asia. Conference papers may consider how textual genres and
canons contribute to larger narratives across self-established formal or
disciplinary scopes; inter- and intra-communal knowledge exchange; and how we
situate these interfaces within broader histories of intellectual transmission,
canon formation, and communicative exchange. In the titular spirit of “resonant
boundaries,” papers might surface how interdisciplinary examinations help us to
reconceive narratives and attest to hidden histories, draw new connections
across doxographically conceived boundaries, and reconceptualize the categories
of our disciplinary studies. How do our understandings of our received
traditions change as we probe these borders? And which theoretical issues and
avenues of inquiry can reconfigurations engender? We welcome consideration of
not only the formulation, but also the acquisition and dissemination of
disciplinary knowledge and borders. How do cultural and scholarly practices
engender theoretical models, historical and sociological processes, and
physical, demographic, and sacred geographies proliferating from South Asia? We
welcome scholars who engage with both premodern and modern South Asia, whose
research extends to surrounding regions, and its place in contemporary global
academies. Please join the conversation to strive toward a shared inquiry into
the shifting boundaries between genres, disciplines and inherited canons, and
all the topics and communities this might meet, to give rise to forms of
knowledge and knowing.
Paper topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:
* South Asia in global philosophical dialogues: patterns of exchange and
adaptation of topics, themes and methods;
* Beyond the darśanas: ethical, anthropological, sociological and political
philosophies across doxographic boundaries;
* Ethics in traditions of renunciation: normative and agential
interpretations in the construction of identity and tradition(s) in word and
practice;
* Intersecting arts and sciences: textualities, literarities, and practices
of astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, economics and public policy across South
Asia;
* Literacy and orality to theorize form and practice in performative arts
(including, but not limited to, literature, prosody, music, theatrical and
dance forms);
* Mutual imbrications of literature and philosophy: translation and
(meta)commentary as mediation between the philosophical and the literary mode
of thought;
* Intertextuality: diatopic transitions of scripts, texts, and editorial
practices; modes of translation and (re)interpretation among Sanskrit,
vernaculars, Persian, Tibetan, Chinese, and other languages; histories of
textual reception, appropriation, censorship, and re-interpretation across
authors, traditions and communities;
* Diachronic patterns of genre and canon formation: classical, modern, and
hybrid forms of literary production;
* South Asian Studies inside-out: interdisciplinary approaches to the study
of South Asia; toward disciplinary histories of South Asian Studies; whither
South Asian studies? Themes and patterns for new avenues of inquiry.
We invite submissions from graduate students and unaffiliated scholars from
a wide range of departments, including Anthropology, Archaeology, Area Studies,
Art History, Comparative Literature, Film Studies, Gender and Sexuality
Studies, History, Law, Linguistics, Philosophy, Political Science, Religious
Studies, and South Asian Studies. Abstracts for individual papers of no more
than 500 words should be sent to [email protected] by 11:59pm US CST,
December 14th, 2025. Panel proposals will not be considered. Applicants will be
notified of a decision in December 2025. Food and lodging will be provided by
the University of Chicago. We will assist with travel reimbursement, but we
encourage students to firstly and also seek support from their home
institutions first so that we can distribute our funds to those most in need.
If you have any questions, please visit our website
https://voices.uchicago.edu/sagsc/ or write to us at [email protected].
Best regards,
The Organizing Committee
Alessandro Ganassi, Divinity School
Caitlyn Marentette, Divinity School
Tancredi Padova, South Asian Languages and Civilizations
Alicehank Winham, Divinity School
Tancredi Padova
PhD Student
Division of the Humanities
University of Chicago
✉︎ [email protected]
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