JMI organizes Twenty-Ninth Lecture of the Distinguished Lecture Series Annemarie Mol on “An Inquisitive Conversation – Pending Questions and Open Endings”

The Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), organized the twenty-ninth lecture of the Distinguished Lecture Series, “An Inquisitive Conversation – Pending Questions and Open Endings” by Prof. Annemarie Mol, Professor of Anthropology of the Body at the University of Amsterdam, on Friday, 9th December 2022, 7:30-8:30 PM IST on Google Meet. Supported by the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC), Ministry of Education, Government of India, the talk was organized as part of the ongoing academic collaboration with the Department of English and American Studies, University of Würzburg, Germany, and promises to be one in a line of successively pertinent lectures.

The discussion was conducted by, Ms. Sakshi Dogra, Ms. Ann Susan Aleyas and Ms. Suman Bhagchandani, Ph.D. scholars, Department of English, JMI, and was enthusiastically attended by a large crowd of scholars, students, and faculty from all over the world and across various time-zones.

Prof. Simi Malhotra, H.o.D., Department of English, JMI, Indian PI, delivered the welcome address, greeting the invited speaker, faculty, scholars, and students. She spoke about the discussion as a part of the ongoing collaborative project between the Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia and the Department of English and American Studies, University of Würzburg, on “New Terrains of Consciousness: Globalization, Sensory Environments and Local Cultures of Knowledge”, supported by the Ministry of Education’s initiative SPARC, “Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration” which aims to facilitate academic and research collaboration between higher education institutes in India and abroad. She, then, introduced the esteemed speaker, Prof. Annemarie Mol, who was greeted by a round of applause.

During the panel discussion with Ms. Sakshi Dogra, Ms. Ann Susan Aleyas and Ms. Suman Bhagchandani, Prof Annemarie Mol, responded to a variety of questions on themes ranging from eating culture to language use. She emphasized the urgent need to do theory with local languages as local practices are tied up with local wordings. She underscored that the social sciences are overdetermined by practices of critique and facting instead of valuing and appreciating. According to her, such a tendency has genesis in the fact that academic writing in saturated with Englishness or widespread English language use.

In conclusion, Prof Mol emphasized that social sciences scholar must interfere with a dominant language such as English in order to destabilize its status as a neutral analytical language.

This was followed by an engaging, in-depth Q/A session coordinated by Ms. Sakshi Dogra, Ph.D. Scholar, Department of English, JMI. The event was brought to an end with a Vote of Thanks by Ms. Aparna Pathak.

To ensure a wide range of viewership and participation, the event was also live streamed on YouTube, and was attended by over a hundred participants.