The Inaugural Asian Arts & Ideas Forum: The Chindia Dialogues (Part II)

Continue, or join us for the first time as The Chindia Dialogues continue with a discussion on Rabindranath Tagore's contribution to world culture, and conversations on nationalism in cultures, literature and cinema and the literature of exile.

1:00-2:15 pm
The "Chindia' Readings

Authors Ha Jin, Meena Kandasamy, Amitava Kumar, Sharmistha Mohanty, Allan Sealy, Yu Hua, Su Tong, and Xu Xiaobin read from their work. Hosted by Amitava Kumar.

2:30-3:30 pm
Defying The Cartographer: Shared Cultures vs. Nation-States

As China and India emerge from their respective revolutionary and colonial pasts, they feature very different literary landscapes. Yet, the global issues both countries contend with — urban development, rural poverty, corruption, wider access to new technologies, etc. — are bringing Chinese and Indian writers closer to a shared fate. Siddhartha Deb, Zha Jianying, Yu Hua and Amitava Kumar speak about how this common legacy has transformed how they write and the issues they now choose to wrtite about.

3:45-4:45 pm
Seeing Double: The Persistence of the Past in Contemporary Chinese and Indian Culture

How has the persistence of the past and the immediacy of China's and India's long histories informed the work of contemporary Indian and Chinese authors? What are the social and political implications of the writer's double vision for his or her role in society?  Andrea Lingenfelter, scholar and translator of Chinese poetry and fiction, will lead a discussion with 'Chindia' writers Ha Jin, Su Tong, Xu Xiaobin and Meena Kandasamy as they read from their work and discuss how the writer both assimilates the past and moves beyond it.

5:00-6:00 pm
Tagore and the Artist as Citizen of the World

In 1927 Rabindranath Tagore invited Chinese Buddhist scholar, Tan Yun-shan, to Santiniketan to teach Chinese at Visva Bharati University. Tan's extraodinary subsequent career as a proponent of Pan-Asianism and Sino-Indian cultural dialogue has been sustained by the work of his son and heir, Tan Chung, who has labored for over half a century on behalf of cultural understanding between Asia's two oldest civilizations. In concluding the 'Chindia' Dialogues, Tan Chung talks with broadcaster Christopher Lydon and writers Amit Chaudhuri and Sharmistha Mohanty, about Tagore's lifelong engagement with China and his visionary commitment to the universal values of tolerance, diversity and cosmopolitan citizenship.

For a full schedule for the Asian Arts and Ideas Forum, click here.

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Can't make it to this program? Tune in to the free webcast from 1:00 to 6:00 pm on AsiaSociety.org/Live. Online viewers are encouraged to send questions to moderator@asiasociety.org

The Chindia Dialogues are co-sponsored by the Center for U.S.-China Relations, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and the India China Institute at the New School University in New York. Major support provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Aashish and Dinny Devitre, Dr. Indu & Mridul Pathak, Erpf Foundation,  Weedon Foundation, Arthur Loeb Foundation, China Energy Fund Committee, and other generous Asia Society supporters.

_{All programs subject to change.}