The Center for Information Technology and Public Policy
(CITAPP)
International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIITB)
invites you to a talk titled
The Role of Education in the Post-Pandemic World
by
Dr. Meenal Shrivastava
Professor of Political Economy and Global Studies
Athabasca University, Canada,
15:30 hours – 17:00 hours, 30th March 2022 (Wednesday)
About the talk:
Pandemics have historically forced humans to break with the past and rethink the social, political, and economic structures. The current domestic and international political-economic structures reflect the historical trajectory of institutionalized socio-economic inequality and class divisions within and among nations. Trends which have worsened in this era of the rise of populism, nationalism and protectionism, the proliferation of authoritarian leaders who defy international norms and human rights, and the absence of coordinated responses to global challenges such as the pandemic or climate change. In the midst of the spectre of war and crisis then, this talk will address questions such as, what is our best chance to imagine our world anew to rethink these structures. What role can education play in reckoning with historical structures of privilege and inequity and in providing creative and innovative solutions to real-world problems? Most importantly, as students and scholars, how can we contribute towards the transformation to a just and inclusive society.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Meenal Shrivastava is Professor of Political Economy and Global Studies at Athabasca University, Canada, and an alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Prior to joining Athabasca University in 2006, Dr. Shrivastava spent nine eventful years teaching in South Africa. She was Chair of the Centre for Social Sciences at Athabasca University from 2017 to 2020 and serves on several editorial and governance boards in Canada and beyond. She has been an invited speaker at various academic and literary events in Canada, India, South Africa, Japan, and the United States. Her academic research explores the complex concept of `globalization’ as a description, a process, as well as an ideology. It has so far led to the publication of three books: Write in Power: An Anthology of the Personal and the Political (The Hidden Pen Collective: Bangalore, 2021), Amma’s Daughters: A Memoir (AUP, 2018) and Alberta Oil and the Decline of Democracy in Canada (AUP, 2015). She has also published more than one hundred and fifty articles, book chapters, papers, and opinion pieces. In addition to her research and teaching on political economy, recently, she has been learning to use relational stories and creative writing as a research methodology to illustrate how individual lives intersect with broad social-political trends, and why it matters.