CHAIRPERSON
Dr Ronojoy Sen, Asia Research Institute and Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore
ABSTRACT
The transition to colonial rule in India has been the subject of much study and debate in South Asian historiography. Explorations have largely neglected to examine the central role of gender in this history. In this paper, I will highlight the ways in which the transition from Mughal to colonial forms of rule in the Indo-Gangetic plains led to the masculinization of the political economy in the eighteenth century. I will further elaborate on the politics of an eighteenth-century Mughal Princess to demonstrate that these processes unwittingly became the context for a unique articulation of Mughal maternal sovereignty. Such reconstructions, I argue, are indicative of the complex nature of sovereignty and processes of state formation during the late eighteenth century in colonial northern India.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Rochisha Narayan is a historian of Early Modern and Modern India with specific research interests in histories of gender, family, caste and the political economy of the eighteenth century in India. She completed her dissertation titled, ‘Caste, Family and Politics in Northern India from the Eighteenth to the Nineteenth centuries’ from Rutgers University-New Brunswick in October 2011. She was a postdoctoral scholar at the South Asia Studies Council at Yale University from 2011-2012. She is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at William Paterson University where she teaches courses on South Asia and World History. Presently, she is working on her book-manuscript.
REGISTRATION
Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP Sharon via email: arios@nus.edu.sg
