Naveeda Khan to Discuss: Bovine Tales of Global Warming
On Tuesday September 27th, the
South Asia Center, in conjunction with Syracuse University’s Departments of
Anthropology and Religion, is pleased to host Naveeda Khan to discuss Bovine Tales of
Global Warming. The lecture will take place in 341 Eggers Hall at 12:30PM.
In her fieldsite of the chars in the
River Jamuna in Bangladesh, Khan was alerted to the insistent presence of
global warming within everyday life through the suffering of cows. The cows’
reactions to heat were readily evident. They stood limply with their skins
sagging heavily, breathing rapidly with their tongues sticking out so as to
cool themselves. Through a focus on cows as they traverse chaura households and
economies, Khan explores how we can come to an understanding of the particular
entanglement of a local ecology with the planetary crisis of warming and
climate change.
Naveeda Khan is an associate professor of anthropology at
Johns Hopkins University. She has written Muslim
Becoming: Aspiration and Skepticism in Pakistan (2012) and edited Beyond Crisis: Reevaluating Pakistan
(2010). She is currently working on a
book manuscript on riverine chars in Bangladesh tentatively titled Towards a Romantic Anthropology: River Life
and Climate Change in Bangladesh.