Join us for a book discussion on this forthcoming volume co-edited by Milinda Banerjee and Julian Strube.
The Mahabharata in Global Political and Social Thought is co-edited by Milinda Banerjee (Lecturer in Modern History, University of St Andrews) and Julian Strube (Professor of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology, Georg-August-University Göttingen) and published by Cambridge University Press. The book discussion will be followed by a drinks reception.
The ancient Indian epic Mahabharata was first composed in Sanskrit and then rendered into Indian vernaculars, as well as other Asian and European languages. This new book positions the epic as an influential political text and explores its role in shaping the global history of ideas and modern social, political, and religious thought across India, Europe, Japan, China, Thailand, Iran and the Arab world. Drawing on methodologies of global intellectual and religious history, contributing authors to this volume study how kings and peasants, statesmen and revolutionaries, intellectuals and activists have invoked the epic to forge their political visions over the past centuries. The epic has thus contributed to state formation and nationalism, as well as the decolonization and democratization of the modern world. This volume helps us understand the non-Eurocentric roots of modern political and social ideas, in India and across Asia and Europe, and thereby the global origins of contemporary politics, society and democracy.
Milinda Banerjee is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of St Andrews. He specializes in History of Modern Political Thought and Political Theory, and is Programme Director for the MLitt in Global Social and Political Thought. He is the author of The Mortal God: Imagining the Sovereign in Colonial India (Cambridge University Press, 2018), and co-author with Jelle Wouters of Subaltern Studies 2.0: Being against the Capitalocene (Prickly Paradigm, 2022). He has co-edited the volume Transnational Histories of the ‘Royal Nation’ (Palgrave, 2017); the forum ‘Law, Empire, and Global Intellectual History’, in the journal Modern Intellectual History(Cambridge University Press, 2020); the special issue ‘The Modern Invention of "Dynasty": A Global Intellectual History, 1500-2000’, in the journal Global Intellectual History (Routledge, 2022); the special issue ‘Political Theology and Democracy: Perspectives from South Asia, West Asia, and North Africa’, in the journal Political Theology (Routledge, 2022); the special issue ‘Forced Migration and Refugee Resettlement in the Long 1940s: A Connected and Global History’ in the journal Itinerario: Journal of Imperial and Global Interactions (Cambridge University Press, 2022); and co-edited the forthcoming volume (with Julian Strube) The Mahabharata in Global Political and Social Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2024). He is founder-editor of a new series, ‘South Asian Intellectual History’ with Cambridge University Press, a founder-editor of two series with De Gruyter, ‘Critical Readings in Global Intellectual History’, and ‘Transregional Practices of Power’, and Special Projects Editor of the journal Political Theology (Routledge). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and Member of the Editorial Board of the Royal Historical Society’s book series ‘New Historical Perspectives’.
This is a free event, which means we overbook to allow for no-shows and to avoid empty seats. While we generally do not have to turn people away, this does mean we cannot guarantee everyone a place. Admission is on a first come, first served basis.
Please register here.