Event: Public Lecture by distinguished author Pankaj Mishra: "Becoming Modern: The Fate of a Compulsion in Asia"
Date: Thursday, November 1, 2007
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Trayes Hall, Douglass Campus Center

Pankaj Mishra was born in North India in 1969. He is the author of the novel The Romantics (which won the Los Angeles Times's Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction) and three works of non-fiction, Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India, An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World, and, most recently, Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond. He regularly contributes literary and political essays to The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and The Guardian, among other American and British publications. He is working on another novel, and, during this academic year, 2007-2008, he is the Visiting Fellow at the Department of English, University College, London. Mr. Mishra has been praised for his sharp eye for the small details that carry global changes into individual lives. His writing captures the contradictions and tensions of global modernity. We have invited him to come to Rutgers because we believe his experiences in a changing world both within and outside India will speak to many people in the university community and beyond.

In this lecture, Mr. Mishra discusses the challenge of "Becoming Modern" and explores the forces that have shaped the societies of India and China for over a hundred years. In recent years, as the two countries invest heavily in economic growth, following a globalized model of consumer capitalism, they have come up against the limits of Western-style modernity. Serious internal problems menace both countries: growing economic inequality, social unrest, and environmental decay. Internationally, their resource-hungry economies set up intense rivalries that recall the 'scramble' among European nations before the First World War. Early in the 20th century, Indian and Chinese thinkers outlined a less dangerous path to modernity. Were they misguided idealists, or visionaries? And how relevant are their ideas today?

Please join us for this enlightening talk as Mr. Mishra shares his insights. A question and answer period and reception will follow the lecture. For more information, please contact the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis at 732-932-8701 or rcha@rci.rutgers.edu

This lecture is cosponsored by The Department of English, The Program in South Asian Studies, Office of Undergraduate Education, The American Studies Department, and Douglass Residential College and the Department of Religion Anna I. Morgan Fund.

This lecture is the first event of a two-day conference on "Rethinking Modernity." On Friday, November 2, conference panels will address the topics of Rationality and Enchantment, Tradition and Innovation, Empires and Democracy, and Culture and Power. Speakers include Misty Bastian (Franklin & Marshall College), Akeel Bilgrami (Columbia University), James W. Cook (University of Michigan), Erez Manela (Harvard University), Mary Louise Pratt (New York University), Corey Robin (Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY), Michael Saler (University of California, Davis), and Kathleen Wilson (Stony Brook University)

Event: "Rethinking Modernity" Conference Panels
Date: Friday, November 2, 2007
Time: 9 am -- 5:30 pm
Location: The Heldrich Hotel, 10 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick

For a description of this conference and a full schedule of events go to: http://rcha.rutgers.edu/rcha.php?page=Fall%20Conference&title=RCHA%20Fall%20Conference

If you have any trouble viewing the links above please visit the RCHA homepage at http://rcha.rutgers.edu