This talk draws on the approach of conceptual historians to explore how Asia emerged as a conceptual space with Afghanistan at its center in the minds and writings of Afghan and Muslim intellectuals in the early twentieth century. Reacting to European civilizational divides, transnationally-connected Muslim reformers of the early-twentieth century like the Afghan writer and statesman Mahmud Tarzi (1865-1933) conceived of a broader Asia in which Afghanistan figured prominently.

Abstract: Fusion energy is increasingly seen as a transformative solution for clean power, yet the quest to reach ignition remains marked by profound scientific, financial, and geopolitical complexities. With major economies and industry leaders channeling vast resources into competing reactor designs, real-world progress hinges on navigating overlapping challenges, ranging from technological breakthroughs to leadership dilemmas in balancing collaboration and competition.

*Light lunch provided*

Landfills in Delhi are often in the public eye, either because of raging fires, oozing leachate in the ground water or their mismanagement in terms of increasing heights, landslides of waste mounds, followed by subsequent mishaps and accidents. These landfills are often seen as sight of ‘disgust’, dangerous discards, and are today at the centre of policy and public deliberation. Representing sites and the epitome of unchecked production and consumerism, landfills today have become living and animated monuments of the Anthropocene.

Refugee camps, regardless of location, are supposed to be “temporary,” a euphemism for biopolitical holding pens that have no end in sight. Host countries thus do not allow permanent structures, and shelters must be made of perishable materials. Such constraints cause particular problems for a camp of the scale of Kutupalong, Bangladesh, which hosts around 900,000 Rohingya. The government of Bangladesh, the UN, and over 100 NGOs who are responsible for this massive population have different agendas and modus operandi.