Frantz Fanon envisioned that the postcolonial culture would be national culture forged by anticolonial struggle by the people. Such a project was anticipated by the radical cultural practitioners in Mumbai’s mill districts. Gyan Prakash's talk examines their efforts in relation to the cultural project of the Nehruvian nation-state, outlining the contest between these different conceptions of national culture.
Gyan Prakash specializes in the history of modern India at Princeton University. His general field of research and teaching interests concerns urban modernity, the colonial genealogies of modernity, and problems of postcolonial thought and politics. He advises graduate students on modern South Asian history, colonialism and postcolonial theory, urban history, global history, and history of science.
This lecture is sponsored by the Liu Institute's South Asia Group and the Department of History.