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A list of all the monthly themes, weekly topics, and the readings that we've covered till now. Get in touch with us via email academicishweekly@gmail.com if you'd like to access a particular article! If you want to participate in our reading and discussion sessions, subscribe to our mailing list for monthly announcements and how to register for the meetings.
May 2020 - Labour
Week 1: Labour & Parliamentary Democracy
Labour & Parliamentary Democracy by BR Ambedkar
Week 2: Skill, Work & Gendered Identity
Skill, Work and Gendered Identity in Contemporary India: The Business of Delivering Home-Cooked Food for Domestic Consumption by Nandini Gooptu & Rangan Chakravarty
Week 3: Occupational Health and Safety
'Health is wealth and wealth is health' - Perceptions of Health and Ill-Health among Female Sex orkers in Savannakhet, Laos by K Phrasisombath, S. Thomsen, V Sychareun and E. Faxelid.
Week 4: Global Value Chain
Value for Whom? The Soccer Ball Industry in China and Pakistan by Hong Xue and Anita Chan
June 2020 - Art and Visual Culture
Week 5: Photography and Colonialism
Between Objectivity and Illusion: Architectural Photography in the Colonial Frame by Vikramaditya Prakash
Week 6: Street Art and Political Protests
Writing at the End of History - Reflections on Two Cases of Graffiti in Hong Kong by Lu pan
Week 7: The Masculine Body in Indian Cinema
The Square Circle: Problematising the National Masculine Body in Indian Cinema by Aparna Sharma
Week 8: The Artistic Legacy of Satyajit Ray: A discussion on his foray into Graphic Design
Title Design in Hindi and Bengali Film Posters by Mohammad Shahid and Dr. D. Udaya Kumar
July 2020 - Urban Spaces
Week 9: Digital Exploration of the Urban
Maps, movements and mobilities: Facebook and 'checking-in' among young men in Pune, India by Rahul Advani
Week 10: Environmentalism in the City
Cows, cars and cycle-rickshaws: Bourgeois environmentalism and the battle for Delhi's streets by Amita Baviskar
Week 11: Gendering of Public Spaces
Why loiter? Radical possibilities of gendered dissent by Shilpa Phadke, Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan
Week 12: Reimagining Urban Design
Citizenship in action: participatory urban visualization incontested urban space by Rachel Kallus
August 2020 - Health
Week 13: Politics of Epidemics
Epidemics and the Politics of Knowledge: Contested Narratives in Egypt's H1N1 Response by Melissa Leach & Mariz Tadrosa
Week 14: Health, Illness and Culture
Eghindi Among Sahrawi Refugees of Western Sahara by Gabriele Volpato and Anna Waldstein
Week 15: Social Infrastructure and Nutrition
Social Infrastructure and Women's Undernutrition by Sunny Jose and K Navaneetham
Week 16: Health in Visual Media
Creating a Consumer: Exploring Medical Advertisements in Colonial India by Madhuri Sharma
September 2020 - Crime and Justice
Week 17: Vigilante Justice
Avenger on the Street (Mumbai Fables) by Gyan Prakash
Week 18: Gendering the Police
"Women's Inhumanity Towards Women?" Treatment of Female Crime Suspects by Female Officers of the Nigerian Police by Richard Abayomi Aborisade & Similade Fortune Oni
Week 19: Redefining Justice
Reconciling a Divided Nation through a Non-Retributive Justice Approach: Ghana's National Reconciliation Initiative by Franklin Oduro
October 2020 - Music
Week 21: Movement, Migration and Music
The Romani Diaspora in Europe: Mutual Influences by Danielle Fosler-Lussier
Week 22: Festivities and Gender Assertions in Folk Music
Taking liberties in festive song: Gender, new technologies and a 'joking relationship' by Smita Tewari Jassal
Week 23: Popular Expressions of Protest Music
Pakistani popular music: A call to reform in the public sphere by Saba Pirzadeh & Tehmina Pirzada
November 2020 - Science & Technology
Week 24: The Scientific Construction of Race
It's a Small World, Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini
Week 25: Caste, Gender & the Production of Science
Brahmins as scientists and science as Brahmins' calling by Renny Thomas
The Production of Science by Bittu Karthik Kondaiah, Shalini Mahadev, Maranatha Grace Them Wahlang
Week 26: Hindu Nationalism & "Vedic Science"
Postmodernism, Hindu nationalism and 'Vedic Science' by Meera Nanda
Week 27: Science as a means of National Unification
Counting Measures: The Decimal Metric System, Metrological Census, and State Formation in Revolutionary Mexico, 1895-1940 by Hector Vera
Week 28: Science, State & Corporate Philanthropy
The philanthropic-corporate-state complex: imperial strategies of dispossession from the 'Green Revolution' to the 'Gene Revolution' by Ashok Kumbamu
December 2020 - Indian Cinema
Week 29: Religious Ideology in Horror
Mapping the Hindi Horror Genre: Ghosts in the Service of Ideology by Meraj Ahmed Mubarki
Week 30: Historical Censorship & Communism
A Specter Haunts Bombay: Censored Itineraries of a Lost Communist Film by Debashree Mukherjee
Week 31: Gender & Sexuality
Queering Bollywood by Gayatri Gopinath
Week 32: Beyond Bollywood
Jallikattu (2019) directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery
January 2021 - Readers' Choice
Week 33: Urban Cartography
Favelas and the divided city: mapping silences and calculations in Rio de Janeiro's journalistic cartography by Andre Reyes Novaes
Week 34: (Dis)ability & Gender in Relationships
(Dis)ability and Exclusion by Anita Ghai
Week 35: Indian Diaspora and Reactionary Politics
The Indian Diaspora in Africa: The Commodification of Hindu Rashtra by Renu Modi & Ian Taylor
Week 36: Critical Pedagogy
Weaving indigenous agricultural knowledge with formal education to enhance community food security: school competition as a pedagogical space in rural Anchetty, India by Shailesh Shukla, Janna Barkman & Kirit Patel
Learning to learn from the Other: subaltern life narrative, everyday classroom and critical pedagogy by Jajati K. Pradhan & Seema Singh
February 2021 - Food
Week 37: Food & Cinema
Not on My Plate! Mapping the trajectory of the meat food culture of Hindi cinema by Meraj Ahmed Mubarki
Week 38: Food as Cultural Heritage
Mexico's ethnic culinary heritage and cocineras tradicionales (traditional female cooks) by Raul Matta
Week 39: Politics of Food (Caste & Veganism)
'Glory to the Cow': Cultural Difference and Social Justice in the Food Hierarchy in India by Shraddha Chigateri
Veganism of Colour: Decentering Whiteness in Human and Non-Human Liberation edited by Julia Feliz Brueck
Week 40: Food Porn in Online Spaces
"Food Porn" as Postfeminist Play: Digital Femininity and the Female Body on Food Blogs by Tisha Dejmanee
March 2021 - Work & Livelihoods
Week 41: Essential Work & the COVID-19 Pandemic
Essential for what? A global social reproduction view on the reorganisation of work during the COVID-19 pandemic by Sara Stevano, Rosimina Ali & Merle Jamieson
Week 42: Resource Extraction & Livelihoods
Informal mining in Mongolia: livelihood change and continuity in the rangelands by Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt & Hishgee Dondov
Week 43: Urban Ecologies and Waste Work
"We Too Have Blackened Our Hands": Work, Harm, and Legitimacy in a Delhi Scrap Market by Ishani Saraf
Value Struggles: Waste Work and Urban Ecology in Delhi
Week 44: Nomadic Pastoralism & Sedentarization
Villagization and access to water resources in the Middle Awash Valley of Ethiopia: implications for climate change adaptation by Mekonnen Adnew Degefu , Mohammed Assen , Poshendra Satyal & Jessica Budds
May 2021 - Sport
Week 45: Play, Pleasure & Prestige
Mazaa: Rethinking Fun, Pleasure and Play in South Asia by Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria & Ulka Anjaria
Dog Fighting: Performing Masculinity in Rural South Punjab, Pakistan by Muhammad A. Kavesh
Week 46: Sports Figures as Political Icons
Exploring the lives and politics of great sporting icons like Muhammad Ali and Diego Maradona through documentary shorts, interviews, and long-form articles.
Week 47: Bodies in (Dis)Play
Bodies and subjectivities: women in Cuban Paralympic sports by Laura Vidaurreta and Luisa Vidaurreta
Week 48: Modernising Traditional Games
(Dis)playing the indigenous body: the case of Indigenous Tribal Games (ITG) in the Philippines by Shekinah Dorelle P. Queri
June 2021 - Ecology
Week 49: What Has Gender Got To Do With It? A Conversation on Environmental Research
with Aditi Patil and Manya
Week 50: Deserts & Jungles: Ecological Variability & Cultural Histories
Tigers and “Good Indian Wives”: Feminist Political Ecology Exposing the Gender-Based Violence of Human–Wildlife Conflict in Rajasthan, India by Kalli F. Doubleday
Gone with the Trees: Deciphering the Thar Desert’s Recurring Droughts by Karine Gagne ́
Week 51: Fisheries: Livelihoods, Governance and Conservation
Fishing and Environmental Regulation in the Caribbean: Acts of Freedom and Control in a Jamaican Coastal Town by Monica Lorenzo Pugholm
July 2021 - Performance (Academic-ish X Meghana)
Week 52: The Audience as Performer (?) in Folk Art
Conceptualising Popular Culture: ‘Lavani’ and ‘Powada’ in Maharashtra by Sharmila Rege
Week 53: The Audience as Critic and Creator in Theatre
Negotiating Identity: Theatre, Performance and Criticism in Africa by Emmanuel S. Dandaura
August 2021 - Language
Week 54: Migration and Language Development
The Hidden Story of Sanskrit by Peggy Mohan (from the book WANDERERS, KINGS, MERCHANTS: The Story of India through its Languages)
Week 55: Linguistic Politics & The Adivasi Identity
Ethnic identity and curriculum construction: critical reflection on school curriculum in Tripura by Fancy Jamatia & Nagaraju Gundimeda
Week 56: Radio Programming & Nationalist Ideologies
Mediating the Countryside: Purists and Pundits on Tashelhit Radio by Katherine E. Hoffman (from the book Language, Land, and Gender in Berber Morocco)
October 2021 - Violence
Week 57: Of Mobs and Memories
Culture of Suspicion: Riots and Rumor in Bombay, 1992-1993 by Radhika Subramaniam
Week 58: Cyber Violence
"In my village everything is known": sexting and revenge porn in young people from rural Spain by Laura Pavon-Benitez, Nuria Romo-Aviles & Pilar Tarancon Gomez
Week 59: Book Burning and Cultural Destruction
Errors of Omission and Cultural Destruction in Iraq, 2003 by Rebecca Knuth
December 2021 - Television
Week 60: Spectacle of Indian TV News
The Subjects of News Television by M. Madhava Prasad
Coverage of the Surgical Strike on Television News in India by Sushmita Pandit & Saayan Chattopaghyay
Week 61: Indian Soaps in the International Sphere
Hindi Films, Bollywood, and Indian Television Serials: A History of Connection, Disconnection, and Reconnection in Tamale, Northern Ghana by Katie Young
Week 62: Reality TV & Investigative Journalism
Public interest television and social responsibility: the search for the missing person in Indian television by Darshana S. Mini
January 2022 - Borders
Week 63 - Colonial Amnesia and the Mediterranean Migrant Crisis
White Innocence in the Black Mediterranean: hospitality and the erasure of history of Ida Danewid
Week 64 - Refugee Education and Boundary-Making
Karen Education and Boundary-Making at the Thai-Burmese Borderland by Su-Ann Oh, Melanie Walker & Hayso Thako
Week 65 - Borders in Dialogue
Can Borders Speak to Each Other? The India-Bangladesh and Spain-Morocco Borders in Dialogue by Dina Krichker and Jasnea Sarma
Week 66 - Seeing like a State vs. Seeing like a Border
Borders and Bordering Practices: A Case Study of Jaisalmer District on India-Pakistan Border by Krishnendra Meena
February 2022 - Food 2.0
Week 67 - Sorghum
Follow the 'Ting: sorghum in South Africa by Laura M Pereira
Week 68 - Palm Oil
The Political Ecology of Palm Oil Production by Renato J. Orsatoa, Stewart R. Clegg & Horacio Falcao
Week 69 - MSG
A Short History of MSG: Good Science, Bad Science, and Taste Cultures by Jordan Sand
Week 70 - Fermentation
Bamboo Shoot in our Blood: Fermenting Flavours and Identities in Northeast India by Dolly Kikon
April 2022 - Space
Week 71 - Smell Spaces: Cartography through Caste
Odor and Order: How Caste Is Inscribed in Space and Sensoria by Joel Lee
Week 72 - Gendered Time, Speed & Space
The “Smart Safe City”: Gendered Time, Speed, and Violence in the Margins of India’s Urban Age by Ayona Datta
Week 73 - Tech-bros in Outer Space
Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Techno-Optimism: Examining Outer Space Utopias of Silicon Valley by Richard Tutton
February 2023 - Humour
Week 74 - Racist Humour & Twitter's "Outrage" Politics
‘If Ever I Offended You I Am Sorry’: Disparagement Humour, Black Twitectives and the Dream Deferred by Shepherd Mpofu
Week 75 - Labour & Power: Humour as Resistance
Tales from Assam's Tea Gardens: When humour becomes resistance in the everyday life-world of labourers by Prithiraj Borah