History, Classics and Archaeology

The Contours of Affinity: Satyajit Ray and the Tagorean Legacy

by Chandak Sengoopta

Published in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 35:1 (2012): 143-161

This paper seeks to demonstrate the complexities of the Tagorean legacy
through a re-examination of Tagore’s... more This paper seeks to demonstrate the complexities of the Tagorean legacy
through a re-examination of Tagore’s influence on the filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
Reappraising Ray’s brief period at Santiniketan and some of his most
celebrated engagements with Tagore, the essay argues that contrary to
conventional wisdom, Ray was not a wholehearted follower of Tagore but a
critical and creative interlocutor. The nuanced interpretation of his relationship
with Tagore that Ray himself proffered in his last film Agantuk (1991), the essay suggests, is more persuasive than the exaggerated notions of Ray’s Tagoreanism propagated by the vast majority of his biographers and critics.

KEYWORDS: Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray, Tagorean legacy, ‘The
Postmaster’, Teen Kanya, Charulata, Agantuk, Tagore and cinema, Ray and
Tagore

A 'Grand Show' for East Africa: the Zanzibar Exhibition of 1905

by Sarah Longair

‘Resounding Community: The History and Meaning of Medieval Church Bells

by Caroline Goodson

with John Arnold, published in Speculum 43.1 (January 2012), pp. 99-130.

Review: Laes,C. 2011. Children in the Roman Empire. Outsiders Within. Cambridge University Press. in Classical Review, forthcoming

by April Pudsey

'Children in Roman and Early Byzantine Egypt' in Parkin, T.G. and Evans Grubbs, J. (forthcoming) The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World (forthcoming, 2013) New York: Oxford University Press

by April Pudsey

Review of Thorley, J (2004) Athenian Democracy (second edition) and Stoneman, R (2004) Alexander the Great (second edition) Lancaster Pamphlets in Ancient History, Evans, E.J and King, P.D (eds.) (Routledge, London) in European Review of History 2007. 14.1

by April Pudsey

Death and the family: widows and divorcées in Roman Egypt’ in Larsson Lovén, L. and Harlow, M. (eds.). 2012. Families in the Imperial and Late Antique Roman Worlds Continuum: 157-80

by April Pudsey

Review: H. LINDSAY, Adoption in the Roman World. (Cambridge University Press, 2009) in Journal of Roman Studies 2011 (101): 267-8.

by April Pudsey

Review: (L.) De Ligt,(SJ) Northwood (edd.) People, Land, and Politics. Demographic Developments and the Transformation of Roman Italy, 300 300 BC-AD 14. (Mnemosyne Supplementum 303) in Classical Review 2010. 60(2): 519-521

by April Pudsey

"Nuptiality and the demographic life cycle of the family in Roman Egypt" in Holleran and Pudsey (eds.), 2011: 60-98.

by April Pudsey

Sex, Statistics and Soldiers: New Approaches to the Demography of Roman Egypt, 28 BC-259 AD (PhD thesis, Manchester)

by April Pudsey

"Introduction: Ancient Historical Demography" (with Claire Holleran) in Holleran and Pudsey (eds.) 2011: 1-13

by April Pudsey

Quid in nomine est? What’s in a name: Re-contextualising the Princely tombs and social change in ancient Campania.

by Owain Morris

Paper given at the "Burial and Social Change in Ancient Italy, 9th-5th century BC:Approaching Social Agents" workshop held at the BSR June 2011.

This paper focused on the Princely tombs found in Campania and argued against the widely held view that these were the... more This paper focused on the Princely tombs found in Campania and argued against the widely held view that these were the result of external impetus. Taking its lead from from new understandings of the ancient Mediterranean (Hodos, 2009 & 2010; Riva 2010) and wider theoretical approaches to the movement of goods and people, such as Networks (Castells, 2001; Malkin et al, 2007; Brughmans, 2010), this paper re-examined these tombs and their contents against the idea of strong and weak ties (Granovetter, 1973).

Review: Jeffrey Hill, Sport in History: An Introduction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Pp. 163. £16.99 (pb). ISBN 978-1-4039-8791-4.

by Geoffrey Levett

Published in 'Sport in HIstory' 31:2 (2011)

A review of Jeffrey Hill's book, 'Sport in HIstory' commenting on this overview of the discipline in the context of... more A review of Jeffrey Hill's book, 'Sport in HIstory' commenting on this overview of the discipline in the context of funding cuts to specialist departments in universities.

'The Fruits of Independence': Satyajit Ray, Indian Nationhood and the Spectre of Empire

by Chandak Sengoopta

Author Posting. (c) Taylor and Francis, 2011.
This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of 'Copyright Holder' for personal use, not for redistribution.
The definitive version was published in South Asian History and Culture, Volume 2 Issue 3, July 2011. doi:10.1080/19472498.2011.577569 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2011.577569)

Challenging the longstanding consensus that Satyajit Ray’s work is largely free of ideological concerns and notable... more Challenging the longstanding consensus that Satyajit Ray’s work is largely free of ideological concerns and notable only for its humanistic richness, this article shows with reference to representations of British colonialism and Indian nationhood that Ray’s films and stories are marked deeply and consistently by a distinctively Bengali variety of liberalism. Drawn from an ongoing biographical project, it commences with an overview of the nationalist milieu in which Ray grew up and emphasizes the preoccupation with colonialism and nationalism that marked his earliest unfilmed scripts. It then shows with case studies of Kanchanjangha (1962), Charulata (1964), First Class Kamra (First-Class Compartment, 1981), Pratidwandi (The Adversary, 1970),Shatranj ke Khilari (The Chess Players, 1977), Agantuk (The Stranger, 1991) and Robertsoner Ruby (Robertson’s Ruby, 1992) how Ray’s mature work continued to combine a strongly anti-colonial viewpoint with a shifting perspective on Indian nationhood and an unequivocal commitment to cultural cosmopolitanism. Analysing how Ray articulated his ideological positions through the quintessentially liberal device of complexly staged debates that were apparently free, but in fact closed by the scenarist/director on ideologically specific notes, this article concludes that Ray’s reputation as an all-forgiving, ‘everybody-has-his-reasons’ humanist is based on simplistic or even tendentious readings of his work.

Review: Anthony Bateman, Cricket, Literature and Culture: Symbolizing the Nation, Destabilizing Empire in Journal of Contemporary History 46:2 (2011)

by Geoffrey Levett

Sport and the imperial city: Colonial tours of Edwardian London

by Geoffrey Levett

Paper given to the British Society of Sports Historians, September 2010

Sport and the Imperial City: Colonial Tours in Edwardian London

by Geoffrey Levett

In Praise of the Whip: A Cultural History of Arousal; Imagining Sex: Pornography and Bodies In Seventeenth-Century England

by Julie Peakman

Bodily Anxieties In Enlightenment Sex Literature

by Julie Peakman