"Deep Structures: The capitals of the Sultans and the riverine plain of Delhi" a talk by Prof. Sunil Kumar at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 23rd April 2013
Time : 3:00 pm
Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)
Place : Seminar Room, First Floor, Library Building, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi
Venue Info : Events | About | Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Race Course(Yellow Line)'
Event Description : The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to the Weekly Seminar on 'Deep Structures: The capitals of the Sultans and the riverine plain of Delhi' by Prof. Sunil Kumar, University of Delhi, Delhi.
Abstract : Questions concerning processes of urbanisation get to be particularly complicated in the study of the Sultanate city of Delhi since its history seems to respond particularly acutely to a variety of contingencies – the rise and fall of dynasts, usurpations, and/or the administrative policies pursued by one (and not the other) monarch. These interpretations conform to the general tenor in Sultanate historiography where political instability and monarchical capriciousness overwrite efforts to glean larger structural shifts in the society and polity in the three centuries of pre-Mughal rule. By contrast, dominant Marxist analyses of this subject seem to disregard contingencies – or read them only selectively to graph linear histories of political centralisation, fiscal appropriation and urbanisation. My paper takes a different tack, and seeks in the very contingencies of Sultanate elite politics a deeper social and political structuring that can complicate the history of Sultanate Delhi. It works self-reflexively with different types of narrative, epigraphic and archaeological materials, not just for facts that can be serially accounted, but equally for the disruptive details that remain ungraspable since their epistemes have not become a part of the archive of the city.
Speaker : Prof. Sunil Kumar is currently Professor of medieval history in the Department of History, Delhi University. He has also taught, most recently (2008-10) at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, and earlier at the EPHE (2006) and EHESS (2001) in Paris. He was Templeton Scholar in Residence at the University of California at Berkeley (2008). Other than several articles, his book publications include: The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 2007, paperback 2010; The Present in Delhi’s Pasts, 2002, 2nd edition, 2010 and edited Demolishing Myths or Mosques and Temples?, 2008, and together with Richard Eaton, David Gilmartin and Munis Faruqui, edited, Expanding Frontiers in South Asian and World History, 2013. He was a member of the editorial collective that produced the current editions of class 7 and class 11 NCERT history text books. Prof. Kumar is joint managing editor of the journal, the Indian Economic and Social History Review.
Related Events : Talks | History
Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)
Place : Seminar Room, First Floor, Library Building, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi
Venue Info : Events | About | Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Race Course(Yellow Line)'
Event Description : The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to the Weekly Seminar on 'Deep Structures: The capitals of the Sultans and the riverine plain of Delhi' by Prof. Sunil Kumar, University of Delhi, Delhi.
Abstract : Questions concerning processes of urbanisation get to be particularly complicated in the study of the Sultanate city of Delhi since its history seems to respond particularly acutely to a variety of contingencies – the rise and fall of dynasts, usurpations, and/or the administrative policies pursued by one (and not the other) monarch. These interpretations conform to the general tenor in Sultanate historiography where political instability and monarchical capriciousness overwrite efforts to glean larger structural shifts in the society and polity in the three centuries of pre-Mughal rule. By contrast, dominant Marxist analyses of this subject seem to disregard contingencies – or read them only selectively to graph linear histories of political centralisation, fiscal appropriation and urbanisation. My paper takes a different tack, and seeks in the very contingencies of Sultanate elite politics a deeper social and political structuring that can complicate the history of Sultanate Delhi. It works self-reflexively with different types of narrative, epigraphic and archaeological materials, not just for facts that can be serially accounted, but equally for the disruptive details that remain ungraspable since their epistemes have not become a part of the archive of the city.
Speaker : Prof. Sunil Kumar is currently Professor of medieval history in the Department of History, Delhi University. He has also taught, most recently (2008-10) at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, and earlier at the EPHE (2006) and EHESS (2001) in Paris. He was Templeton Scholar in Residence at the University of California at Berkeley (2008). Other than several articles, his book publications include: The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 2007, paperback 2010; The Present in Delhi’s Pasts, 2002, 2nd edition, 2010 and edited Demolishing Myths or Mosques and Temples?, 2008, and together with Richard Eaton, David Gilmartin and Munis Faruqui, edited, Expanding Frontiers in South Asian and World History, 2013. He was a member of the editorial collective that produced the current editions of class 7 and class 11 NCERT history text books. Prof. Kumar is joint managing editor of the journal, the Indian Economic and Social History Review.
Related Events : Talks | History
"Deep Structures: The capitals of the Sultans and the riverine plain of Delhi" a talk by Prof. Sunil Kumar at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 23rd April 2013
!["Deep Structures: The capitals of the Sultans and the riverine plain of Delhi" a talk by Prof. Sunil Kumar at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 23rd April 2013]()
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Tuesday, April 23, 2013
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