Willkommen am Institut für Orient- und Asienwissenschaften!

ld Goa developed as one of the major port cities of the Indian Ocean during the sixteenth century, as the Portuguese attempted to control maritime trade routes by occupying the region’s major coastal settlements and blockading others. The city became both a trade emporium and a religious center for the Portuguese State of India (Estado da Índia), an “informal” empire that stretched from Eastern Africa to the Pacific Ocean rim. In this presentation, I will describe Old Goa’s urban development during the Early Modern period, focusing on slavery, caste and religion as essential aspects in shaping the city. Addressing issues such as urban layout, segregation, sacral landscapes and dwellings, I will highlight how the most vulnerable and disenfranchised population groups fared in Old Goa’s multilayered society.

Public lecture by Dr. Anna Grasskamp: The creative reuse of materials “made in China” has a short history in the daily practices of middle-class households, but a long history in art, craftsmanship and design. When Ming dynasty potters in China’s “porcelain capital” Jingdezhen made plates, cups, and bowls, they could not have known that their work would be reused to decorate European sites, for examples as hats in two sculptures at Berlin’s Charlottenburg Castle; likewise, factory workers and ragpickers on contemporary garbage dump sites in China may be unaware of artworks made entirely of discarded objects exhibited in exclusive urban art spaces all over the world. This paper discusses and analyzes historic and contemporary practices of upcycling in art and design with a special focus on materials and objects “made in China” in relation to research on the social lives of things and ecologies of matter.

Tanzschritte, Handgesten, eine Mrdangam Trommel, ausdrucksstarke Mimik und oft sehr humorvolle Texte, dass ist die Mischung, die den aus dem südindischen Kerala stammenden Thullal Tanz so attraktiv machen. Der Freiburger Künstler Hartmut Schmidt beschäftigt sich seit über 30 Jahren sehr intensiv mit dieser bis heute populären Kunstform. In seiner Lecture Demonstration stellt er die unterschiedlichen Stilrichtungen vor und erklärt anhand zahlreicher Beispiele die Besonderheiten von Thullal. Sechs Geschich-ten wurden von ihm aus der Originalsprache Malayalam ins Deutsche übertragen, sind so nachvollziehbar für das kleine und große Publikum bei seinen Auftritten an Schulen und in Theatern.