About this Event
Coastal Worlds
A Conference by the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania
in partnership with EnviroLab, Penn Anthropology, and Penn Music
March 25-27, 2026, University of Pennsylvania
Organizers:
Professor Nikhil Anand (CASI Interim Director)
Dr. Matt Barlow (Technical University of Munich; CASI Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2024-25)
Dr. Sita Mamidipudi (CASI Climate Postdoctoral Research Fellow)
DAY 1: (WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25)
PCPSE Auditorium (Lower Level) 133 S. 36th Street
5:00pm | Conference Keynote Address
"Drawn into Life: Climate, Infrastructure, and Coastal Futures from Mumbai"
V. Chitra (Lecturer, Australian National University)
DAY 2: (THURSDAY, MARCH 26)
Penn Museum (Widener Lecture Hall) 3260 South Street
9:30am | Panel 1: Substances
Presenters:
Thomas Oommen (UC Berkeley)
Reading Monsoon Modernisms: Small Places and Global Histories on the Malabar Coast of Kerala, India
Vinita Govindarajan (Columbia) & Dhruv Gangadharan (Rutgers)
Salt and the City: The Political Ecology of Salt Industries in Thoothukudi
Calynn Dowler (Vanderbilt)
Cultivating Possibility in Coastal Worlds
Discussant: Franz Krause (University of Cologne)
Moderator: Kimberly Thomas (Temple)
11:00am | Coffee & Tea Break
11:30am | Panel 2: Tides
Presenters:
Nityanand Jayaraman (Waikato)
Towards a Littoral Political Ecology: Amphibious World-Making in the Ennore–Pulicat Wetlands
Claudia Lang (Maastricht)
Trauma of the Sea: Coastal Dosham, Erosion and Cyclical Injury in Kerala, South India
Cristina-Ioana Dragomir (NYU)
Staying Afloat: Gendered Infrastructures of Mobility and Belonging in the Sundarbans
Discussant: Megnaa Mehtta (UCL)
Moderator: Thomas F. Tartaron (Penn)
1:00pm | Lunch in Widener Lecture Hall
2:00pm | Panel 3: Suspension
Presenters:
Sahithya Venkatesan (Rutgers)
Casted Coastlines: Temple Lands, Territorial Sovereignties, and the Making of Climate Futures in Vedaranyam, South India
Deepa Ramaswamy (Houston)
Drowned Land, Waste Land, and the Labor of Reclamation
Shalini Iyengar (Yale)
The Curious Case of the Red Crabs of Coastal Bengal: Property, Protection, and all the Rights in Between
Discussant: Monica Barra (South Carolina)
Moderator: Simon Richter (Penn)
3:30pm | Coffee & Tea Break
4:00pm | Panel 4: Transformation
Presenters:
Gillian Bogart (Hawaii)
Shifting Coastal Livelihoods: Land-sea Transformations in Kupang Bay
Scott Erich (CUNY)
Pearl Beds to Oil Fields: Geological Continuity and Social Change in the Persian Gulf
Matt Schneider (UCLA)
Offshore Revisited: Coastal Coordinates of Asian Energy Transitions
Discussant: Amelia Moore (Cornell)
Moderator: Patrick Eisenlohr (Göttingen)
5:30pm | Reception in Dept. of Anthropology Lounge
DAY 3: (FRIDAY, MARCH 27)
9:30am | Workshops (Limited Availability)
Workshop #1: Visual Ethnography
with V. Chitra
(in Penn Museum, Widener Lecture Hall, 3260 South Street)
Workshop #2: Sonic Ethnography and Atmospheric Knowledge
with Patrick Eisenlohr
(in Penn Music, Lerner 101, 201 S. 34th Street)
12:00pm | Lunch in Widener Lecture Hall
1:00pm | Closing Roundtable: “Coastal Futures” in Widener Lecture Hall
Discussants: Megnaa Mehtta, Monica Barra, Amelia Moore, and Franz Krause
Moderator: Nikhil Anand
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics, 133 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, United States
USD 0.00
