International Seminar on
'Situating History of Environment: The Territory of Historians of Environment',
DRS Programme (Phase I), Department of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India, March 3-5, 2005
The Department of History, Jadavpur University, is organizing an International Seminar on 'Situating History of Environment: The Territory of Historians of Environment' in early March 2005. The study of environmental history has now become important as a natural and inevitable result of a perceived 'environmental crisis' in today's world. This perception has resulted in the development of a broad area called Environmental Studies. However, in view of the important role of the scientists in the emergence of Environmental Studies - and the subsequent contribution of scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to this field - it has remained an open-ended subject. Within the field, 'environmental history' remains universally acknowledged as a critically important area of inquiry, but without well-defined disciplinary canons and methodological guidelines. It is strongly felt that only professional historians with the requisite methodological training will be able to (1) develop and define the agenda and disciplinary canons of this field of inquiry, and (2) historicise the present-day concerns and anxieties in the broad area of Environmental Studies. Unfortunately, no Department of History in India has come forward to undertake this task in a concerted and coordinated manner. This is the lacuna that the proposed International Seminar under the DRS project of the Department of History, Jadavpur University, seeks to fill in. This three-day international seminar on the state of art in the environmental History aims to bring together approximately 30 leading scholars sharing a common interest in the environmental history of South Asia and various parts of the world to deliberate on the subject.
For further information and registration please contact :
Professor Ranjan Chakrabarti
Department of History
Jadavpur University
Kolkata 700032 (India)
Telefax 91-33-24146962 (O)
Email ranchakju@yahoo.co.in
ranjanju@fulbrightweb.org