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SUMMARY:A science in translation: homoeopathy in colonial Bengal - Shinjin
 i Das (CRASSH)
DTSTART:20161117T130000Z
DTEND:20161117T140000Z
UID:TALK67866@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Richard Staley
DESCRIPTION:Over the years\, robust and divergent strands of South Asian s
 cholarship have studied the relationship between science\, medicine and co
 lonialism. The translation of western medical texts into South Asian verna
 cular languages under the patronage of the colonial state has received con
 siderable attention. What has not been explored adequately\, however\, is 
 the participation of Indians themselves in processes of scientific transla
 tion. As an instance of a western science that the colonial state attempte
 d to censor\, the popular practices of translation around homoeopathy prov
 ide a distinct narrative of western science's colonial reception. This pap
 er traces the efforts of some late nineteenth-century Indian pharmaceutica
 l-firms to translate homoeopathy for a vernacular Bengali audience. It exp
 lores the domestication and indigenisation of homoeopathy\, with its roots
  in Germany\, in Bengal\, through such acts of scientific translation. The
  paper shows that at one level translation reified the power and superiori
 ty of western science and language (mostly English) as global and universa
 l categories. Simultaneously\, these Bengali translations contested the un
 iversal status of western science by reinterpreting homoeopathy as profane
 \, local and indigenous to Bengal.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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