his workshop, organised by Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad and the Victorian Diversities Research Network brings together Victorian Studies' scholars who seek to elucidate the many encounters between Britain and Asia in the nineteenth century. In this context, we understand encounters as both methodological and textual (Sara Ahned, Strange Encounters, 2000). We are interested in Ahmed's conceptualization of these embodied 'encounters,' as well as in what Ahmed calls the affective construction of cultural/national 'otherness'—the ways these cross cultural interactions were affectively structured—just as their neo-colonial geopolitical echoes continue to be (The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 2004). We observe how, not just nineteenth century socio-cultural approaches to otherness, but scholarly studies of the period also continue to be affectively imbued (see, for example, the title of Nasser Mufti's essay "Hating Victorian Studies Properly," 2020). At a time when these distinctions between the citizen and the alien, the national and the migrant, the legitimate and the undocumented are emerging with horrific force, we urge a re-examination of the idea of national encounters and the cultural difference as they were staged at the British-Indian colonial interface over the long nineteenth century.
We invite papers that revisit the colonial encounter in creative and productive ways, allowing for redefinitons of the ideas of alienness, intimacy, influence, and hybridity. Papers can examine how British-Indian networks were constituted through the language of feeling and institutionally routed through the rhetoric of emotion. We also welcome papers that reflect on and reconfigure academic encounters with Victorian studies through new pedagogical and methodological approaches. We are interested in papers that explore the nineteenth century colonial encounter from a public humanities perspective—studying how nineteenth century colonialist structures define modern societal/technological approaches to, and exclusions within, the fields of health, climate, religion, (social) justice, or heritage. We especially welcome papers that lead to new encounters with marginalised writers from the nineteenth century.
Thanks to AHRC funding, this is a free but limited capacity event. Campus accommodation is available at a reasonable cost for participants. You can email for more information. Please send your bios and abstracts (300 words) to Dr. Shuhita Bhattacharjee and Éadoin Agnew.
The keynote speakers will be Dr. Tara Puri and Prof. Supriya Chaudhuri
Created 7 April 2025
Last modified 9 April 2025