This workshop examines the history of how sciences produce, measure, sustain difference, with a focus on South Asian contexts. Topically, papers range from the histories of craniometry to genetics and sexology.

Sciences of Difference in South Asia Workshop Program

Day 1 | August 19th

10:05AM – 11:35AM Chair: Rahul Mukherjee, University of Pennsylvania

Rammohun Roy’s Head: Phrenology, Material Culture, and the Making of Human Difference in South Asia, 1815–1914

James Poskett, University of Warwick

Archive and Exception: the moral order of astronomy at Madras Observatory, 1792— 1870

Siva Prashant Kumar, University of Pennsylvania

11:35AM – 11:45AM: Break

11:45AM – 1:15PM Chair: Megan Robb, University of Pennsylvania

Modern Marathi Elites Ruling Difference in Colonial Maharashtra

Shailaja Paik, University of Cincinnati

Studying the Communal Self: Social Psychology and ‘Tensions’ research in Mid-Twentieth Century India

Koyna Tomar, University of Pennsylvania

1:15PM – 2:15PM: Lunch at the workshop venue

2:15PM – 3:45PM Chair: Claire Sabel, University of Pennsylvania

“Twas Not the Sires of Such as These”: Pessimism, Seasoning, and ‘Race’ in James Johnson’s The Influence of Tropical Climates...on European Constitutions (1813)

Suman Seth, Cornell University

India’s Nitrogenous Differences: Race, Labor, and Metabolism in the Experiments of David McCay, c. 1910

N J. Dharan, University of Pennsylvania

3:45PM – 4:00PM: Break

4:00PM – 6:00PM Chair: Projit Mukharji, University of Pennsylvania

Many Anthropologies of S.C. Roy: The Journey through a Discipline

Sangeeta Dasgupta, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Divergent Evolutions: Studying Iranian Genetics from South Asia

Elise K. Burton, University of Cambridge

Day 2 | August 20th

9:00AM – 9:45AM Breakfast at the Lounge, History and Sociology of Science, Cohen Hall

10:00AM – 11:25AM Chair: Sarah Qidwai, University of Toronto

Broken and Unbroken History: Academic History, Public Sphere, and Nationalism

Prabir Mukhopadhyay, Calcutta University

Universality and Difference: Political Economy and Philosophy of Science in Early-Nineteenth Century Imperial Britain

Upal Chakrabarti, Presidency University

11:25AM – 11:30 AM: Break

11:30 AM – 12:55 PM Chair: Suman Seth, Cornell University

Indian Sex Life: Ethnology and the Primitivity of Female Sexuality

Durba Mitra, Harvard University

'Science of Difference' as a Vision for Social Reform: Eugenics in early 20th century South Asia

Arnav Bhattacharya, University of Pennsylvania

12:55 – 2:00PM: Lunch at the workshop venue

2:00PM – 4:00PM Chair: Debjani Bhattacharyya, Drexel University

Poison and Falsity in South Asian Forensics

Mitra Sharafi, University of Wisconsin Law School

Proofs of Indian Childhood: Colonial Law, Forensic Science, and the Epistemic Contract on Age

Ishita Pande, Queen’s University

4:00PM – 4:10PM: Break

4:10PM – 5:35PM Chair: Greg Goulding, University of Pennsylvania

Decolonizing the Orgasm: Brahmanism, Whiteness and Knowledge Production at the "End of Empire"

Shefali Chandra, Washington University

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Sexual Science and the Production of Sodomy in Colonial North India

Rovel Sequeira, University of Pennsylvania

5:35PM – 6:05PM – Concluding Session chaired by Partha Chatterjee