Dr. Suraj Yengde: Caste: Suture of Oriental and Occidental Mesh
Thursday, March 10, 2022 3:45 pm – 5:15 pm CET/GMT+1Online Event
Caste: Suture of Oriental and Occidental Mesh
Dr. Suraj Yengde is one of India’s leading scholars and public intellectuals. Named as one of the "25 Most Influential Young Indian" by GQ magazine and the "Most influential Young Dalit" by Zee, Suraj is an author of the bestseller Caste Matters and co-editor of award winning anthology The Radical in Ambedkar. Caste Matters was recently featured in the prestigious "Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade" list by The Hindu. Caste Matters is being translated in seven languages.
Suraj holds a research associate position with the department of African and African American Studies. Suraj's recent appointment was Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, a non-resident fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, and was part of the founding team of Initiative for Institutional Anti-Racism and Accountability (IARA) at Harvard University. He has studied in four continents (Asia, Africa, Europe, North America), and is India’s first Dalit Ph.D. holder from an African university (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg). He is an International Human Rights attorney by qualification from India and the UK.
Suraj has published over 100 essays, articles, and book reviews in multiple languages in the field of caste, race, ethnicity studies, and labor, migration in the global south. Currently, he is involved in developing a critical theory of Dalit and Black Studies. He has been nominated for India's highest literary award "Sahitya Akademi" and is a recipient of the "Dr. Ambedkar Social Justice Award" (Canada, 2019) and the "Rohit Vemula Memorial Scholar Award" (2018).
Suraj has worked with leading international organizations in Geneva, London, and New York. He is a co-convener of Dalit-Black Lives Matter symposium and the Dalit and Black Power Movement. He runs a monthly Ambedkar Lecture Series at Harvard. He is an associate editor of Southern Journal of Contemporary History.
His talk will discuss Dalit public and print sphere of the 19th – 20th century, the formation of Dalit consciousness and anti-Brahminism, the census and the role of the British in mismanaging this very important phase, and a critical take on postcolonial and subaltern scholarship.
Email: [email protected]