The School of Liberal Studies, KIIT, organised two special talks under its Study Circle, Reimagining Liberal Studies, on 28 and 29 September 2026.
The first talk, held on 28 September 2026, featured Prodosh Bhattacharya, Ph.D., University of Warwick, UK, who spoke on “‘Thambu’ as an Ecology of Performance: Circus Studies in South Asia”. The lecture explored the productive intersection of circus studies and performance studies, examining how the colonial trope of “taming the wild” was appropriated and capitalised upon by colonial circus companies. It traced the entangled histories of performance, acrobatic arts, colonialism, and nationalism, while also reflecting on how the space created by Thambu negotiated questions of gender, conformity, and subversion. The discussion offered a nuanced understanding of circus not merely as spectacle, but as a complex cultural space.
The second talk, held on 29 September 2026, featured Sritama Chatterjee, Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh, USA. Her talk, “Inter-disciplined: Reading Anticolonial Science Narrative in the Indian Ocean Novel,” explored the intersections of literature, science, ecology, and postcolonial studies, with particular attention to the Indian Ocean and its literary and cultural landscapes. Through references to diverse archives, the session also introduced the genre of science writing and its interdisciplinary possibilities. The interactive and engaging discussion highlighted the growing significance of Oceanic Studies within the literary and environmental humanities.
