The historian gathering fragments of the past to understand how humans tick

07 September 2021

After he began studying at Cambridge, Sujit Sivasundaram, found the freedom to let his imagination and curiosity roam. Yet his interests and intellectual life continue to be shaped by the global South. Today, as Professor of World History, he is passionate about bringing the untold and forgotten stories from the past to life, so that we can understand the conditions and possibilities that frame human existence.

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Stills from the Kendall III film

A glimpse of India

26 October 2015

Kevin Greenbank, archivist at the Centre of South Asian Studies, explores the ways in which the home movie offers fascinating insights into the lives of those in front of, and behind, the camera – as rare footage of a 1935 Raj picnic shows.

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Queuing to vote in India

A democratic cacophony

23 October 2015

India is home to one of the most vibrant, engaged and mystifying democracies on the planet. Cambridge academics, across a wide range of disciplines, are working on the ground – with citizens, charities, NGOs, fellow scholars and politicians – to try to untangle it.

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Man with a Bouquet of Plastic Flowers (1976) by Bhupen Khakhar

Man with a Bouquet of Plastic Flowers

20 October 2015

Almost 40 years have passed since Bhupen Khakhar painted one of the most iconic paintings in the history of Indian modern art. Dr Devika Singh offers fresh insights into a generation of Indian artists whose work reflects the politics and social turmoil of a fascinating era.

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Charles Augustus Whitehouse's diary and souvenirs

The Sea-Pie and the sad sailor

16 October 2015

The idiosyncratic diaries of one man’s voyage from Liverpool to India, and the exquisite painted souvenirs he bought there, are among the treasures to be found in the archives at the Centre of South Asian Studies.

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The European in India, 1813 by Charles D'Oyly (1781-1845)

A world of science

08 October 2015

The history of science has been centred for too long on the West, say Simon Schaffer and Sujit Sivasundaram. It’s time to think global.

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Mid-19th-century map with a line linking Britain to India

Cambridge and India

05 October 2015

Cambridge’s engagement with India has evolved from scholars working on India to scholars working with, and increasingly, in India – on shared priorities, to mutual advantage. Joya Chatterji, Toby Wilkinson and Bhaskar Vira explain why this is, as we begin a month-long focus on some of our India-related research.

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Indian Parliament building (designed by British architect Edwin Lutyens) in 1944

How the Westminster parliamentary system was exported around the world

02 December 2013

As an expert in constitutional law, Sir Ivor Jennings played a pivotal role in the establishment of states emerging from British rule in the mid-20th century. He later became Master of Trinity Hall. As Smuts Visiting Fellow, Dr Harshan Kumarasingham is researching how Jennings and other British figures shaped the lives of millions of people around the world. 

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