The first Ireland India Postgraduate Conference on South Asia was held by the Ireland India Institute on the 26th of May 2017. Hosted in the picturesque All Hallows’ Campus of DCU it featured two engaging speeches by keynote speakers Dr. Faisal Devji and Dr. Meena Kandasamy and nine panels attended by over fifty participants. The myriad of research interests and issues that were raised generated interesting discussions and created an open space for academic engagement. The panels ranged from literary readings of South Asia, narrative and memory studies to new perspectives on conflict resolution as well as re-inventing normative academic discourses. The Ireland India Institute was glad to host participants from esteemed institutions across Europe and South Asia and expect a larger participation again for the 2018 South Asia Conference.

Building on the success of the conference the participants will establish a European research network for postgraduate students researching on South Asia. This network will allow postgraduate research students and early career academics to interact and collaborate for a productive exchange of ideas and pursue avenues to develop research groups bringing people with similar research interests together.