Upcoming Events
“An Ocean of Air-Rights: Speculative Reconstruction in Contemporary Mumbai”
September 22, 12 pm
CELT Room #306 in Howard-Tilton Memorial Library
Speaker: Vyjayanthi V. Rao
Vyjayanthi V. Rao is an anthropologist, writer, artist and curator, currently teaching at the Yale School of Architecture. Her work focuses on the built environment and urbanism in India and the United States, specifically comparing Mumbai and New York. She has published extensively on urban transformation and she serves as an Editor in Chief of the journal Public Culture (Duke University Press). She is the chief curator of the third editor of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, opening in November 2026.
Dr. Ana M. Ochoa Gautier, Tulane Professor of Ethnomusicology and Hannah Chalew, Visual Artist
Monday, October 13, 12 pm
CELT Room #306 in Howard-Tilton Memorial Library
Dr. Macabe Keliher, Professor of History at Southern Methodist University. “Constructing the Laissez-Faire Narrative of Industrialization: Hong Kong at the 1970 World Expo”
Monday, October 27, 12 pm
Stibbs Room in LBC
Dr. Lama El Sharif, Postdoctoral Fellow at Mahindra Humanities Center, Harvard University
Monday, November 10, 12 pm
CELT Room #306 in Howard-Tilton Memorial Library
Past Events
“Tulane Global Humanities Center: The Launch”
September 8–12 pm
Stibbs Room in Lavin-Bernick Center
Panelists: Chris Dunn, Edwige Tamalet Talbayev, Maryam Athari, Tori Bush
Moderator: Brian Edwards
This opening panel discussion of the Tulane Global Humanities Center explores the center's biennial theme of Global Port Cities.
An Ocean of Air-Rights: Speculative Reconstruction in Contemporary Mumbai with Vyjayanthi V. Rao
September 22, 12 pm
Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Room 306
This talk contrasts and explores two exemplary moments in the growth and urban development of the colonial port city of Bombay from the 19th century to its present avatar as Mumbai, a center of global speculative capital. Connecting the colonial opium trade to the city’s morphology and physiognomy, we explore the contemporary effort to redevelop Mumbai through the planning instrument of air rights and the forms of collective urban life that might be produced in its wake.