'Thinking (with) the Indian Pangolin : A human-animal perspective on India’s colonial & princely histories' a talk by Dr. Julie Hughes at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 20th March 2014
Time : 3:00 pm
Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)
Place : Seminar Room, Library Building, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi - 110011
Venue Info : Events | About | Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Race Course(Yellow Line)'
Event Description : The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to a Public Lecture (in the ‘Science, Society and Nature’ series) on ‘Thinking (with) the Indian Pangolin : A human-animal perspective on India’s colonial and princely histories’ by Dr. Julie Hughes, Vassar College, New York, USA.
Abstract : What is an environmental historian to do when aspiring to look beyond the relatively well-documented non-human, such as the elephant or the domestic dog, to instead write a history of human relations with an animal that might reasonably be called a ‘subaltern species’? To help answer this question, this lecture takes a close look at the infrequent and often tentative appearances between the eighteenth and the twenty-first century of the Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) in the historical records of British colonial and princely India. Unlike the tiger or the wild boar, the importance of which in human terms are more immediately obvious, the human-animal history of the pangolin has operated on a more subtle plane, perfectly in line with the natural inclinations of this nocturnal, burrowing, predominantly insectivorous mammal. In South Asia, the pangolin’s rare appearance has evoked fascination and experimentation, consternation and speculation, admiration and even suspicion. It has been an object of material consumption and of wildlife conservation. It has returned human interest with defensive and offensive measures, expressions of displeasure, and, in select cases, with seeming nonchalance or even affection. This unlikely historical subject even played important roles in mediating the complex relationships between colonizer and colonized in British India, and between ruling chief and ‘tribal’ subject in the princely states of Southern Rajputana.
Speaker : Dr. Julie E. Hughes (Ph.D, University of Texas at Austin, 2009) is Assistant Professor of History at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She is the author of Animal Kingdoms: Hunting, the Environment, and Power in the Indian Princely States (Permanent Black, 2012; Harvard University Press, 2013). Her work explores social, political, and ‘natural’ classifications of people and animals in South Asia. Currently, she is researching colonial and post-colonial adoptions of sub-adult tigers, leopards, and other wild animals—including the fascinating yet frequently overlooked pangolin—by Indians, Anglo-Indians, and Europeans in South Asia, as well as the legendary adoptions of human children by wolves and other wildlife in the subcontinent.
Related Events : Talks | History
Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)
Place : Seminar Room, Library Building, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi - 110011
Venue Info : Events | About | Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Race Course(Yellow Line)'
Event Description : The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to a Public Lecture (in the ‘Science, Society and Nature’ series) on ‘Thinking (with) the Indian Pangolin : A human-animal perspective on India’s colonial and princely histories’ by Dr. Julie Hughes, Vassar College, New York, USA.
Abstract : What is an environmental historian to do when aspiring to look beyond the relatively well-documented non-human, such as the elephant or the domestic dog, to instead write a history of human relations with an animal that might reasonably be called a ‘subaltern species’? To help answer this question, this lecture takes a close look at the infrequent and often tentative appearances between the eighteenth and the twenty-first century of the Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) in the historical records of British colonial and princely India. Unlike the tiger or the wild boar, the importance of which in human terms are more immediately obvious, the human-animal history of the pangolin has operated on a more subtle plane, perfectly in line with the natural inclinations of this nocturnal, burrowing, predominantly insectivorous mammal. In South Asia, the pangolin’s rare appearance has evoked fascination and experimentation, consternation and speculation, admiration and even suspicion. It has been an object of material consumption and of wildlife conservation. It has returned human interest with defensive and offensive measures, expressions of displeasure, and, in select cases, with seeming nonchalance or even affection. This unlikely historical subject even played important roles in mediating the complex relationships between colonizer and colonized in British India, and between ruling chief and ‘tribal’ subject in the princely states of Southern Rajputana.
Speaker : Dr. Julie E. Hughes (Ph.D, University of Texas at Austin, 2009) is Assistant Professor of History at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She is the author of Animal Kingdoms: Hunting, the Environment, and Power in the Indian Princely States (Permanent Black, 2012; Harvard University Press, 2013). Her work explores social, political, and ‘natural’ classifications of people and animals in South Asia. Currently, she is researching colonial and post-colonial adoptions of sub-adult tigers, leopards, and other wild animals—including the fascinating yet frequently overlooked pangolin—by Indians, Anglo-Indians, and Europeans in South Asia, as well as the legendary adoptions of human children by wolves and other wildlife in the subcontinent.
Related Events : Talks | History
'Thinking (with) the Indian Pangolin : A human-animal perspective on India’s colonial & princely histories' a talk by Dr. Julie Hughes at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 20th March 2014
!['Thinking (with) the Indian Pangolin : A human-animal perspective on India’s colonial & princely histories' a talk by Dr. Julie Hughes at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 20th March 2014]()
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Thursday, March 20, 2014
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