Dr. Rohee Dasgupta is a part-time Professor at the School of Conflict Studies, Saint Paul University. She is researching Identity Politics, Conflict Studies, and Jewish Identity and Culture. Dr. Dasgupta joined the first cycle of the English M.A program while holding a Ph.D. certificate already. We met her for a brief, fascinating zoom conversation, hearing about the possible similarities between Indian and Jewish identities and her experience in the M.A program.
Q: Where did you grow up?
Rohee: I have lived in nine countries so far, therefore, it's a very difficult question because most experiences have contributed to my life’s growth. But if I have to, I'll say I am originally from Calcutta, India. However, I left Calcutta in my early ‘20s and my sense of belonging as well as views are very cosmopolitan today.
Q: Where do you live now?
Rohee: I am based in Ottawa. I immigrated to Canada in fall 2019 and currently I teach at the School of Conflict Studies, Saint Paul University. I teach M.A courses on Identity and Conflict.
Q: What was initially your attraction to Jewish Studies?
Rohee: My Ph.D. at Keele University in the United Kingdom, was on renewing Polish Jewish identity and rights in Poland, but I started studying Jewish Studies towards the end of my M.A course in Diplomacy and International Relations at Keele.
What initially attracted me to the study of Jewish identity was the larger concept of how an identity travels amidst cultural as well as political negotiation and turns into a multicultural subject. In the course of my early research years, I found the stories of survival and rebuilding of the Jewish lives/communities despite persecutions at different junctures in history also inspiring. Having had the ancestry of people changing lands because of the partition of India, I could understand stories of negotiation and resettlement. I started studying post-Communist transitions, and got the opportunity to visit many of these countries in East and Central Europe as they were accessing to become EU members.
Long story short, I studied Jewish identity, as I particularly liked the concept of how the Jewish identity moves, gathers, survives, negotiates and at times also reinvents in order to exist. It's essentially a migrant idea of being between belonging and unbelonging.
I studied Ashkenazi Jewish identity more specifically all through my doctoral years. In my postdoc years, I got a fellowship at Brandeis University related to teaching Israel Studies, knowing very well that it was a different story from East-Central European Jewish Studies. It was almost as if I took the Yiddish route to the east coast (Rohee is laughing).
I got the opportunity of being a Director of an Israel Studies Centre in India between 2012 and 2019 at the Jindal School of International Affairs, OP Jindal Global University. I taught courses on Israeli Culture and Society and Arab-Israel Conflict, which led to various programs and workshops with US, Israeli and Canadian Universities. In Israel, the centre collaborated with Tel Aviv University, Bar Ilan University and Shalem College. We organized 55 conferences on Israel Studies, including Zionism in the 21st C.
Q: What made you decide to take the M.A program of the Melton Centre, and how was your experience while taking the course?
Rohee: I am non-Jewish, non-European, so taking the Master's program at the Melton Centre was a labor of love. I felt that the M.A program would fittingly contribute towards expanding my knowledge of Jewish Studies while actively working as an academic and anthropologist. The summer semester at the Melton Centre was just wonderful and very enriching. I'm immensely grateful to two professors at Hebrew University who taught me; I really loved their courses. One was Dr. Gillis’ course on Levinas and a course on Jewish thought taught by Professor Jonathan Cohen. Studying under Professor Cohen was a privilege, his deep and articulate perspectives while theorizing Jewish Education, its norms, continuity and praxis was enlightening. The Melton Center has amazing faculty.
Q: What exactly about it was interesting for you?
Rohee: Studying Jewish Identity and Jewish Studies from the perspective of Israel was interesting for me. The course provided an opportunity to analyze theological debates, engage with biblical texts and visit the relevant sites/places led by Mr. Haim Aronovitz which provided an apt empirical dimension to the deeper psychosocial connections of Jewish peoplehood, Israeli memory, literature and identity. It all gave me a good context. Although I have to add that the professors presented many cosmopolitan perspectives during classes which opened the discussion on global approaches to Jewish Education as well. For me, the course was a stimulating cultural journey into the layered authenticity of Jewish pedagogy.
I have now been a researcher for over 15 years in Jewish Studies. I'm not Jewish, but I certainly don't feel very far away from it because when you're an anthropologist, you know the cultural nuances and mind of your subjects, their discourses and the inter/sub-texts of the different communities. After a while, you'll feel, "Yeah, I know a bit about this." At the same time, every learning, particularly with Israel education and peoplehood, continues to add a deeper understanding of the vibrant nation through myriad contexts of history, philosophy, literature, discourses and politics. It humbles me.
Another aspect while doing the course was witnessing academic and cultural interchanges during specificities of class discussions. As an anthropologist, it was fascinating to listen to views, questions and opinions of class-mates coming from diverse Jewish, Christian and secular backgrounds. The program was a dynamic educational deliberation that provided an opportunity to understand the prism of Jewish curriculum, reason, social consciousness while acquiring an appreciation of the diverse cultural mosaic that Israel is today.