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India: The Entire Past
Many Narratives of the Indian Civilization
Speakers
G N Devy has immersed himself in a project that takes on a contentious issue in India’s culture wars, the country’s long history. He has brought together ninety historians from around the world to work with him on this project to trace the trajectory of the entire subcontinent since the end of the last ice age, some 12,000 years ago. This has culminated in the new book The Indians: Histories of a Civilization.
Jointly edited by G N Devy, Tony Joseph (known for Early Indians) and Ravi Korisettar (eminent Archeologist), it has over a hundred focused essays by ninety scholars from all continents. The volume brings together the history of diverse people in South Asia from the times before the Holocene till our day. It presents the essential profile of India through the prisms of environment, population migrations, language-mix, emergence of philosophies, rise of different states, various people’s movements impacting the destiny of India and the formation of the nation as a ‘union of states’.
G N Devy and Ravi Korisettar will describe the process leading to the unique collective that undertook and completed the comprehensive account of India’s past. They will offer glimpses of various enigmatic historical issues that the book deals with.
The first copy of the book will be presented to eminent historian Ramachandra Guha who will offer his views on the collective initiative.
In collaboration with:
Speakers
G N Devy
G. N. Devy is a well-known literary thinker and a linguist, currently the Obaid Siddiqi Chair at the National Centre for Biological science TIFR, Bangalore. Last year he delivered a series of four lectures at the BIC on Memory, Culture and Language
Ramachandra Guha
Ramachandra Guha’s books include a pioneering social history of sport, a landmark history of independent India, and an authoritative two-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi, both volumes of which were chosen by the New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year. His awards include the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History, the Sahitya Akademi Award, and the Fukuoka Prize for contributions to Asian culture. He is the recipient of an honorary doctorate in the humanities from Yale University. He lives in Bengaluru.
Ravi Korisettar
Ravi Korisettar is currently Adjunct Professor at national Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru and also Hon. Director Robert Bruce Foote Sanganakallu Archaeological Museum, Ballari. He served in the Department of History and Archaeology, Karnatak University, Dharwad, from 1989-2013.
