2005 Media Releases
Tuesday, 25 October 2005
LIISA: new focus on Indian and South Asian studies
La Trobe University’s new Institute for India and South Asia – LIISA – will be launched this week by the High Commissioner for India, H. E. Mr P. P. Shukla.
The launch, at 12 noon on Thursday, 27 October 2005, will be held in Radford Hall, Chisholm College, on the University’s main Melbourne campus at Bundoora.
La Trobe University Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, Professor Brian Stoddart, said the Institute brings together long-standing efforts in studies of India and its neighbours. It will also initiate and support new programs to deepen La Trobe University’s connections with the region.
La Trobe University has researched and taught about India and South Asia since the late 1960s and its Borchardt Library today holds one of Australia’s finest collections dealing with the region.
Professor of Politics, Robin Jeffrey, who helped develop the field at La Trobe University and who serves as Director of the new Institute, said one of the earliest distinguished visitors to La Trobe University was former Indian Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi in 1968.
‘Since then, hundreds of scholars have studied in these areas and La Trobe researchers have written scores of books and papers about India and South Asia,’ Professor Jeffrey said.
He said studies at La Trobe University range from India’s media industries and Hindi language-teaching, to research that is about to see published in English more than 7,000 verses from the classical Sanskrit 'Ganesh Purana', a text containing myths about the popular elephant-headed god Ganesh, that have never been translated into a European language.
Other LIISA activities include a University exchange agreement with Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi (named the best college in India in 2005 by India Today magazine), administration of the La Trobe University India Focus Group, the Martell-DK essay Prize, and a project helping digitise for the world-wide-web rare 19th century Indian reports and documents influential in the formation of nation, state and culture during the colonial period.
The University has invited to the launch local communities from the region, as well as students and researchers with an interest in that part of the world.
As part of the inauguration, Professor Dipesh Chakrabarty from the University of Chicago, will lead a seminar titled 'The Legacies of Bandung: Decolonization and the Politics of Culture', at 3pm, Martin Building Building, Room 362.
Note: 'Salaam Namaste', the largest Indian feature film shot in Australia – starring Preity Zinta and Saif Ali Khan – was partly filmed on location at La Trobe University’s main Melbourne campus at Bundoora earlier this year. Currently one of India’s top box office successes, the film is helping promote the State of Victoria, and La Trobe University, to an estimated Indian audience of 300 million.
• Professor Robin Jeffrey was last week appointed to the most influential academic post in his field in Australia: Director of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies and first Convenor of the College of Asian and Pacific Studies at the ANU, Canberra. He will maintain a link with LIISA.
For further information:
Tracy Lee, Email: t.lee@latrobe.edu.au or Tel: (03) 9479 2685.