ABSTRACT
This talk considers the movement and replacement of postcolonial monuments on the Indian subcontinent. While the destruction of statues at moments of regime change were widely feared, several monuments were moved to different locations in India and locations in the British empire. In following the travels of several statues, the talk analyzes how monuments mark time and space as they elaborate new imperial and national formations in the prolonged postcolonial moment.
BIO
Durba Ghosh is Professor of History at Cornell University, where she teaches courses on modern South Asia, the British empire, gender, and colonialism. She is also the current director of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Program. Her first book project, Sex and the Family in Colonial India (Cambridge UP, 2014) focuses on gender, culture, law, archives, and colonial governance in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century India. Her latest book, Gentlemanly Terrorists (Cambridge UP, 2017) studies underground radical political movements in early and mid-twentieth century India and the ways in which political violence against the British colonial state became an important, but historically underemphasized, form of protest. Her next project, on which the lecture is based, focuses on commemorations of freedom fighters, and the ways in which public monuments and statues used to mark India's independence struggle have become a part of India's political landscape.
This event is free and open to the public. If you need accommodations to participate in this event, please contact icm@cornell.edu as soon as possible.
