Ideas of India in Britain 1857-1947

This workshop aims to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of ideas of India in Britain between 1857 and 1947, by bringing together early-career researchers and more senior academics from different disciplines working on this crucial aspect of British intellectual history. This was not only a transformational period for British colonial attitudes to India as an imperial subject – from the trauma of ‘the Mutiny’ to the political and emotional severance of Indian independence – but it was also a period in which ideas of India more generally played a defining role in the intellectual and cultural life of Britain. Particular aspects of the theme which participants’ papers will discuss include ideas of India in professional Indology; the idea of India in ‘esoteric’ spiritual movements such as Theosophy; Indians in Britain (e.g. Purohit Swami, Keshab Chandra Sen, Swami Vivekananda); the idea of India in literary, intellectual and popular culture; and comparative studies of conceptions of India on the continent.