| 3 Jun 2011 - 4 Jun 2011 | All day | CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge | |
- Description
Description
Conveners
Dr Sujit Sivasundaram (History/Gonville and Caius, University of Cambridge)
Dr Alan Strathern (Churchill/Murray Edwards, University of Cambridge)
Sri Lanka lies at the centre of the Indian Ocean, where it has served as a node between Indian ocean trades: to the west, to West Asia and Africa, and to the east, to the Bay of Bengal and South-east Asia. Its location at the southern tip of India has ensured that it has received waves of conquerors, settlers, traders, dynasties and holy men.
Sri Lanka has also been a major participant in the Theravada Buddhist ecumene extending to Southeast Asia. And its strategic location was partly why it was colonized by three successive imperial regimes: the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. Yet Sri Lanka's history has remained marginal to debates in world and imperial history. The island provides a good opportunity to reconsider questions of locality and generality, connection and comparison, from a specific place.
One objective of the conference is to help to re-energize research into the history of Sri Lanka in the UK by bringing researchers whose work has touched on the island into contact with one another and with leading international scholars. However, speakers will be invited to move beyond national history by locating their work within broader and more imaginative conceptions of space, and wider debates in world history. Some speakers will be approaching their subject through 'connected history', by considering the island's place in extensive webs of empire, trade, and travel, the transnational flows of ideas, styles and goods. Others will use the island in a more strictly comparative vein too.
Accommodation for non-paper giving delegates
We are unable to arrange accommodation, however, the following websites may be of help.
NB. CRASSH is not able to help with the booking of accommodation.
Sponsors
The Trevelyan Fund
The conveners are grateful for the support of The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), the Trevelyan Fund (both at the University of Cambridge) and The American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies (AISLS).
Administrative assistance: Helga Brandt (Conference Programme Manager, CRASSH)
