Autobiography of an archive : a scholar's passage to India
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Autobiography of an archive : a scholar's passage to India
(Cultures of history)
Columbia University Press, c2015
- : cloth
Available at 1 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 339-372) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The decades between 1970 and the end of the twentieth century saw the disciplines of history and anthropology draw closer together, with historians paying more attention to social and cultural factors and the significance of everyday experience in the study of the past. The people, rather than elite actors, became the focus of their inquiry, and anthropological insights into agriculture, kinship, ritual, and folk customs enabled historians to develop richer and more representative narratives. The intersection of these two disciplines also helped scholars reframe the legacies of empire and the roots of colonial knowledge. In this collection of essays and lectures, history's turn from high politics and formal intellectual history toward ordinary lives and cultural rhythms is vividly reflected in a scholar's intellectual journey to India. Nicholas B. Dirks recounts his early study of kingship in India, the rise of the caste system, the emergence of English imperial interest in controlling markets and India's political regimes, and the development of a crisis in sovereignty that led to an extraordinary nationalist struggle.
He shares his personal encounters with archives that provided the sources and boundaries for research on these subjects, ultimately revealing the limits of colonial knowledge and single disciplinary perspectives. Drawing parallels to the way American universities balance the liberal arts and specialized research today, Dirks, who has occupied senior administrative positions and now leads the University of California at Berkeley, encourages scholars to continue to apply multiple approaches to their research and build a more global and ethical archive.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction: Passage to India Part I. Autobiography 1. Annals of the Archive: Ethnographic Notes on the Sources of History 2. Autobiography of an Archive 3. Preface to the Second Edition of The Hollow Crown Part II. History and Anthropology 4. Castes of Mind 5. Ritual and Resistance: Subversion as a Social Fact 6. The Policing of Tradition: Colonialism and Anthropology in Southern India Part III. Empire 7. Imperial Sovereignty 8. Bringing the Company Back In: The Scandal of Early Global Capitalism 9. The Idea of Empire Part IV. The Politics of Knowledge 10. In Near Ruins: Cultural Theory at the End of the Century 11. G. S. Ghurye and the Politics of Sociological Knowledge 12. South Asian Studies: Futures Past Part V. University 13. Franz Boas and the American University: A Personal Account 14. Scholars and Spies: Worldly Knowledge and the Predicament of the University 15. The Opening of the American Mind Notes Permissions Index
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