Start main page content

Events

Satadru Sen Memorial Lecture 2024

When: Wednesday, 02 October 2024
Where: Online Event
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Dilip.Menon@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Dilip.Menon@wits.ac.za

History and the Political Imagination

The Centre for Indian Studies in Africa presents it’s Annual Satadru Sen Memorial Lecture Series. This year Prof Faisal Devji, Professor of Indian History at University of Oxford will present his lecture on History and the Political Imagination. It seems impossible to think about politics in anything but historical terms. Not only does grand strategy require a historical narrative, but popular politics is also defined by visions of a past that must either be repudiated or reclaimed. But today this relationship between politics and history appears to have reached an impasse, with versions of the past endlessly but unconvincingly recycled to explain the present. Historians have dealt with this problem by focussing on the issue of presentism, though more interesting might be thinking about politics outside history. Focussing on 20th-century efforts to avoid historical narrative, this lecture will trace the emergence of esotericism in anti-colonial and Cold War political thought to argue for its return in our own times. This takes place on 2 October 2024, from  18:00 to 19.30 online. Join here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84836749523?pwd=xEgJjoxQbtzgEOVtIgP0AsGhUg5v6U.1

Meeting ID: 848 3674 9523         Passcode: 346167

 

calendar iconAdd event to calendar