Aug 12, 04: Questioning History with Vinay Lal
Dr. Vinay Lal discusses how history is taught in South Asia and around the world and what is wrong with it, political appropriation of history, what goes into textbooks and the political agendas behind it, and much much more.
VINAY LAL is Associate Professor of History at UCLA where he teaches Indian history, and comparative colonial histories. He offers courses and seminars on a variety of issues including global politics, the Indian diaspora, History and popular cinema, violence in contemporary India, the political and moral thought of Mahatma Gandhi, the politics of culture and so on.
Professor Lal studied literature, history and philosophy as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins, from where he also received his Masters. He completed his Ph.D with distinction in South Asian Studies at The University of Chicago in 1992. He is the author and editor of several books including The History of History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern India.(2003), Empire of Knowledge (2002); Dissenting Knowledges, Open Futures ( this is a book on Asish Nandy) 2000 and a recent collection of essays titled OF Cricket, Guiness and Gandhi (2003). Vinay Lal contunues to serve on important Councils and Committees that are concerned with preserving plural knowledges, promoting cultural survival, and ensuring humane futures for history’s victims, both within South Asia as well as the rest of the world.
