[Asia_news] ANU SOUTH ASIA SEMINAR SERIES

[barbara nelson]

ANU SOUTH ASIA SEMINAR SERIES
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, ANU College of Asia and the
Pacific

Wednesday 25 October 2006, 2.00-3.30pm Seminar Room C, Coombs Building,
Fellows Road, ANU 

Writing Environmental History of South Asia in the 21st Century

Ranjan Chakrabarti, Professor of History, Jadavpur University (India)

The study of environmental history has now become important as a natural and
inevitable result of a perceived 'environmental crisis' in today's world.
This perception has resulted in the development of a broad area called
Environmental Studies. However, in view of the important role of the
scientists in the emergence of Environmental Studies - and the subsequent
contribution of scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to this field
- it has remained an open-ended subject. Within the field, 'environmental
history' remains universally acknowledged as a critically important area of
inquiry, but without well-defined disciplinary canons and methodological
guidelines. It is strongly felt that only professional historians with the
requisite methodological training will be able to (1) develop and define the
agenda and disciplinary canons of this field of inquiry, and (2) historicise
the present-day concerns and anxieties in the broad area of Environmental
history. Unfortunately, professional historians appear to be somewhat
reluctant to come forward to undertake this task in a concerted and
coordinated manner. This is the vacuum that this lecture seeks to address.
As the work progressed, I was particularly amazed by the richness of this
literature and embarrassed by my ignorance of them. The historiography of
environmental history has multiplied itself more than hundred times over the
last two decades or so.
It is fairly well known that history is essentially a continuous dialogue
between the past and the present. Historians give voice to the silences of
the archives. The pattern of historical research changes frequently and
there is no doubt that it has changed substantially in recent times. It
seems that under the forceful impact of post-modernism today we are hearing
the voice of alternative histories instead of a simple single track. I am
not a post modernist but I agree with one of our colleagues (Dr Sekhar
Bandapadhyaya) that history has survived the onslaught of post-modernism.
The purpose of the present lecture is to raise two important questions that
the scholars interested in this particular branch of history might wish to
ask. These questions are: 1) is it a separate sub-discipline under the
discipline of history or it is just a recent offshoot of social history/
cultural history / intellectual history/economic history /history from
below/tribal history/history of peasant resistance/history of
socio-political crime etc? 2) What is the present state of scholarship in
this field and what is the shape of the historiography of the subject at
present?

ALL WELCOME

Further information: Barbara Nelson, Director's Section, RSPAS, ANU
Tel: 61250283 Email: Barbara.Nelson at anu.edu.au