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SUMMARY:Past unlimited: the canal of Zabita Khan - Pratik Chakrabarti (Uni
 versity of Manchester)
DTSTART:20190214T153000Z
DTEND:20190214T170000Z
UID:TALK112822@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Agnes Bolinska
DESCRIPTION:This paper shows how deep time superseded various other forms 
 of historical imaginations in India. In doing so\, it critiques the concep
 tions of deep history\, of the ways it overwrites other histories. It trac
 es this process through the history of the canal of Zabita Khan. In the ea
 rly 19th century\, the British began one of their most ambitious irrigatio
 n projects in India. As British engineers started to dig the Doab canal\, 
 they realised that there existed an medieval system of canal networks. In 
 the course of the excavations\, ancient canals appeared indistinguishable 
 from old riverbeds and geomythical rivers and the lines between the monume
 nt and the terrain or the 'natural' and the 'historical' become impercepti
 ble. Rivers moved\, legends moved with them\; dead riverbeds became canals
 \, canals became natural channels of water and mythical rivers were traced
  in the landscape. In the process\, the landscape\, the legends\, and the 
 monuments became part of this colonial antiquarianism in which the history
  of a medieval canal was recounted as one of deep history.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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