TEACHING SIKHISM:
A Workshop on Pedagogy in Sikh Studies
December 5th and 6th 2015
2022, Thayer Building
Organizer: Dr. Arvind-Pal S. Mandair
Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
University of Michigan
Workshop Theme
It is increasingly recognized that the university classroom at once forms and is informed by issues of a global nature, and is influenced by the concerns of students who enter and populate that space. Using this as a guiding insight, the purpose of this workshop is to bring together a group of experienced faculty who specialize in teaching Sikh studies and have been instrumental in introducing the subject of Sikh studies in North America and Europe. The workshop will consider some broad questions outlined below. Invited faculty are encouraged to reflect on their long experience of teaching and research in Sikh studies and to engage with any subset or combination of questions that speak directly to the way that their classroom experience intersects with research interests. What does it mean to teach Sikhism in the Western academy today? Can the field of Sikh studies pose challenges to conventional pedagogies? Can Sikh Studies be taught beyond the constraints of area studies (e.g. as a subset of Punjab Studies, or South Asian studies)? If so, to what extent can the space of the Sikh Studies classroom directly “engage with various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences in such a way as to affect and infect the very matter and content of the mainstream, while simultaneously inculcating a self-critique…”. Does the status of Sikh Studies as a minority or outlier field require scholars to reflexively engage with the frameworks within which it is taught? To what extent is this engagement with the structures of disciplinarity delimiting and to what extent is it essential? How can we work toward a critical pedagogical standpoint that is inimical neither to Sikh experience nor to the materiality of Sikh Studies/Sikh tradition? How does one develop a pedagogy that complicates the continued dominance of Anglophone conceptuality, or the language of global education in undergraduate and graduate classrooms?
PROGRAM
Saturday 5th December 2015
8.45-9.00 Welcome & Opening Remarks
9.00-10.30 Session 1
Van Dusenbery: Sikh Studies via Case Studies: Teaching Sikh Issues in Global Context in a Liberal Arts Setting.
Lou Fenech: An Iowa Student in Guru Gobind Singh’s Court
Responses initiated by Harjeet Grewal and Punnu Jaitla
10.30-10.45 Break
10.45-12.30 Session 2
Michael Nijhawan: Incorporating Sikhism in the Sociological Imagination: Diasporic Subjects and “Heritage Learning
Raji Soni: Violence in Teaching: Governmentalized Grievances and the Postnational Challenge in Graduate Pedagogy
Responses initiated by Balbir K. Singh and Randeep Hothi
12.30-1.30 pm Lunch
2.00-2.30 Session 3
Pal Ahluwalia: Sikh Faith and the Humanities
Pashaura Singh: Teaching Sikhism to a Diverse Body of Students
Responses initiated by Parvinder Mehta and Randeep Hothi
3.30-3.45 pm Break
3.45-5.15 pm Session 4
Nikky Singh: Teaching Sikhism at a New England liberal arts college.
Gurharpal Singh: Teaching Sikhism in Britain: the Challenges and Opportunities
Responses initiated by Nirinjan Khalsa and Harjeet Grewal
Closing Remarks
6.30-8.00 pm Dinner
Sunday 6th December 2016
Roundtable Discussions
9.00-10.30 Sikh Studies and Punjab Studies: recent debates?
Discussion Initiated by Punnu Jaitla
10.30 -11.00 Break
11.00 -12.30 Connecting Instructors and Students in Sikh Studies
12.30 Workshop ends
Speakers
Pal Ahluwalia: Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of Portsmouth, UK.
Van Dusenbery: Professor, Hamline University, USA.
Louis Fenech: Professor, University of Northern Iowa
Anne Murphy: Associate Professor, University of British Columbia
Michael Nijhawan: Professor, York University, Canada
Gurharpal Singh: Dean, SOAS, University of London.
Nikky Singh: Professor and Crawford Chair, Colby College, USA
Pashaura Singh: Professor & Saini Chair Sikh Studies, & Department Chair, U.C. Riverside
Raji Soni: Visiting Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech, USA
Respondents
Dr. Nirinjan Khalsa (Loyola Marymount University)
Dr. Jaswinder Singh (Punjabi University Patiala)
Puninder Jaitla (University of Michigan)
Randeep Hothi (University of Michigan)
Harjeet Grewal (University of Michigan)
Balbir K. Singh (University of Washington)
Dr. Parvinder Mehta (Wayne State University)