Wilson to discuss middle class morality in Tamilnadu

The South Asia Center welcomes Nicole A. Wilson, who will be the final speaker in this semester's Speaker Series. Her talk, entitled “Everyone Knows the Story of the Greedy Dog”: The Middle Class Moral Dilemma in South India” will be on Tuesday, December 6 at 12:30 p.m. in 341 Eggers Hall.   The speaker, a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at Syracuse University, reacts to the recent Indian middle class anti-corruption movement as a consequence of modernity and a foundation for angst-ridden social activism in the Indian public sphere.  Wilson argues that at the heart of this formation and confrontation as well as movements sprung from these clashes, is a communal understanding and employment of a conceived middle class moral compass that embodies particular class and caste-based values and worldviews.  The talk will identify and explore middle class morality and value systems revealed to the speaker in the south Indian city of Madurai, Tamilnadu.  Wilson draws upon ethnographic material collected between 2009 and 2011, as well as examples from Tamil cinema and literature, to illustrate the battle between “modern” and “traditional” selves, commenting on how these confrontations are manifested in the moral codes and daily interactions of middle class Tamils.