"The Carol Breckenridge Annual Memorial Lecture in South Asian History"

As a historian and scholar of global cultures, Carol Breckenridge (1942-2009) brought along with her to different cities and campuses not only her erudition and insight into intellectual debates on global and transnational issues, but also her formidable gift of inspiring others through a rare combination of charm, generosity of spirit, hospitality and hard work. The journal Public Culture which she founded in 1988 with her husband and soulmate Arjun Apadurai, the later Sister Cities Project and the articles and books she wrote and co-edited with colleagues, have brought new perceptions to the field and remain as evidence of her unstinting efforts against the stultifying effects of academic parochialism on the world at large. At the New School for Social Research and at other departments and universities where Carol and Arjun have lived and taught, Breckenridge will be remembered for the way she personified these very commitments by her concern and care for her junior colleagues and students, even while, as in more recent times, she was courageously coping with physical challenges of her own. Mentor, scholar, and friend, she will be sadly missed.

*CHRISTOPHER BAYLY*
Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge

will deliver the inaugural lecture:

"The Rise, Transformation and Fall of Liberalism in India, 1800-1950"

*Tuesday, May 11, 2010
6:00-8:00 PM
Theresa Lang Student Center
55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor

A celebrated authority on modern Indian history (18th century to the present), Professor Bayly is the author in 2004 of The Birth of the Modern World: Global Connections and Comparisons 1780-1914; The Origins of Nationality in South Asia (1997); Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870(1996); Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780-1830 (1989); Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (1988); Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1780-1870 (1983); and, The Local Roots of Indian Politics: Allahabad 1880-1920 (1975). His two latest works are collaborations with Dr. Tim Harper: Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia 1941-45 (2004); and the forthcoming Forgotten Wars: Revolution and the End of empire in British Asia, 1945-55.

Professor Bayly's lecture will be followed by a reception.

This event is co-sponsored by the India China Institute and Asia Connections at the New School for Social Research.