The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library

cordially invites you to a Conference

at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday-Saturday, 25-27 April, 2013

in the Seminar Room, First Floor, Library Building

on

'Thinking through Law:

South Asian histories and the legal archive'

in association with

Prof. Neeladri Bhattacharya,

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,

Dr. Rashmi Pant, Fellow, NMML,

Prof. Janaki Nair,

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,

Dr. Aparna Balachandran,

University of Delhi, Delhi,

Prof. Bhavani Raman,

Princeton University, USA.

Concept note:

The law in South Asian historical writing has had a specific presence, with more attention being paid to legislative processes than case law, to the effects of law rather than its performance, to legal outcomes rather than judicial reasoning, and to judicial processes rather than the new subject positions offered by the law.  While reflections on law and society animate the work of sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists (as well that of feminists across these disciplines), the time is ripe for a more self- conscious reflection on the law among historians. What does a deeper engagement with historical issues bring to the study of the law? How can a critical reflection on law and legal sources illuminate, and perhaps even challenge our understanding of the discipline of history? The realm of the law, with its prodigious textual traditions and productions, its incitements to speak, and the range of subjectivities it generates, has recently begun to interest historians of all periods in India, though, given the proliferation of the archive, the modern period has perhaps seen the most energetic engagements. 

The proposed conference on South Asian histories and the legal archive hopes to present and engage with recent scholarship on the law in different historical periods, and to generate new tools of historical analysis and perspectives for future reflection.

Please find the programme schedule of the Conference attached.

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Centre for Contemporary Studies

NMML