history – South Asian Studies Collective

April 23, 2023

Conversations on South Asia with Robert Travers

Tuesday, May 9 | 12:15–1:15 PM ET | Zoom

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-travers

How did Mughal law shape Britain’s empire in India? How did imperial officials co-opt and transform Persianate approaches to law and justice? What influence did late-Mughal practices of petitioning and complaint have on colonial state formation?

In Empires of Complaints: Mughal law and the making of British India, 1765–1793 (Cambridge University Press 2022), historian Robert Travers (Cornell University) explores these questions and employs Persian and English sources to offer a new history of early colonial statecraft. With a focus on revenue collection, taxation, and civil law, Travers recasts the history of law in this pivotal period of transition.

Join us to learn more.

Hayden Bellenoit (US Naval Academy) and Naveena Naqvi (University of British Columbia) will be joining the author for this discussion.

Elizabeth Lhost will moderate.

******

Conversations on South Asia is sponsored by the Bodas Family Academic Programming Fund, the Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages Program, and the History Department at Dartmouth College.

All are welcome to attend.

August 30, 2022August 31, 2022

Conversations on South Asia with Ishita Pande

Conversations on South Asia banner header

Tuesday, September 13 | 12:15–1:15 PM EDT | Zoom

Register: https://dartgo.org/conversations-pande

How did expanding ideas of childhood give rise to new forms of colonial governance? How did the need to protect children shape understandings of modern sexuality? And why did the child become a dominant political concern in the era of rising anticolonial nationalism?

Looking at the ideas and ideologies surrounding the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929, historian Ishita Pande (Queen’s University) explores these questions in Sex, Law, and the Politics of Age: Child Marriage in India, 1891–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Now available in paperback (use code HIS1222 to receive a 20% discount), the book investigates colonial policies, local practices, and the gendered discourses that shaped them both.

Join us to learn more!

Kristine Alexander (University of Lethbridge) and Susan Pearson (Northwestern University) will be joining the author for this conversation.

Elizabeth Lhost will moderate.

*****

Conversations on South Asia is sponsored by the Bodas Family Academic Programming Fund, the Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages Program, and the History Department at Dartmouth College.

This event is free and open to the public. All are welcome to attend.

February 23, 2021February 23, 2021

March 2: Conversations on South Asia with Nandini Chatterjee

Join us Tuesday, March 2 from 12–1 pm (EST) for the next Conversations on South Asia event with Nandini Chatterjee (History, Exeter University).

This month, we’ll be discussing Chatterjee’s most recently published book, Negotiating Mughal Law: A Family of Landlords Across Three Indian Empires, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020 and is freely available as an open access book through Cambridge Open.

In the book, Chatterjee explores the textures, nuances, conflicts, and complications of Mughal law using an archive of legal documents and materials that she reconstructed from multiple sites and repositories in and beyond South Asia.

Dominic Vendell (History, Exeter University) and Samira Sheikh (History, Vanderbilt University) will join us for this conversation.

Elizabeth Lhost (History Department, Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College) will moderate.

Support for the Conversations on South Asia Series comes from the the Bodas Family Academic Programming Fund, the Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages Program, the Department of History, and the Society of Fellows at Dartmouth.

This event is free and open to the public.