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South Asia
Roundtable Session
The Ananda Coomaraswamy Book Prize recognizes a significant scholarly work in South Asian studies. This roundtable honors Cynthia Talbot, the 2018 Coomaraswamy awardee, by bringing together scholars to address the diverse questions raised by her book. The Last Hindu Emperor addresses both the premodern texts that were inspired by the memories of Prithviraj Chauhan and also raises questions about the ways in which colonial scholars, nationalists, and contemporary forces continue to reshape and commemorate the complex presentation of this medieval king. The roundtable will begin with a presentation by the author about the process through which the book took shape. Then each discussant will discuss the book’s contributions to specific intellectual fields or new questions it poses. Manan Ahmed will reflect on the particular role of geneaologic-memory and historic-narration for second millennium Hindustan. As Ahmed notes, Talbot’s work opens up pathways for new forms of historical inquiry that eschews normative distinctions between history, memory and historiography. In doing so, it opens up methodological pathways to counter the violence of the colonial administrative-knowledge complex. Norbert Peabody will examine the implications of Talbot’s findings concerning the Prithviraj Raso for broader understandings of how emergent, 18th-century conceptions of “Hindu” kingship in Rajasthan both informed and were transformed by early colonial readings of Hindu-Muslim relations. Divya Cherian will place the book within recent studies that explore the intersections of history and memory from the medieval past to the present, discussing the challenges and promises of this new direction in the field of South Asian history. She will also reflect on the significance of the seventeenth century for the histories of caste and community formation both in Rajasthan and South Asia more broadly. Following this, the audience and roundtable discussants will have ample time to participate in a moderated discussion.
Purnima Dhavan
University of Washington
Ramnarayan Rawat
University of Delaware
Purnima Dhavan
University of Washington
Cynthia Talbot
University of Texas at Austin
Manan Ahmed
Columbia University
Norbert Peabody
Cambridge University, United Kingdom
Divya Cherian
Princeton University