The Time Machines of Eighteenth-Century Mewar

2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-241
Author(s):  
Nachiket Chanchani
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Linear Time ◽  
Western India ◽  
British Colonialism ◽  
Cyclical Time ◽  
Time Machines ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

Abstract The focus of this essay is a spectacular scroll in the British Museum's collections that has been neither exhibited nor published since its acquisition. Perhaps that is because several fundamental questions about it remain unanswered: Where and when was it made? Who made it, and for whom? What purpose and meaning did it have for the first people who saw it and those who subsequently came into contact with it? In this essay, I begin to address these elementary questions. I establish that this eleven-foot-long scroll was created in Mewar in western India in 1769, and that since then it has cleaved many realms. Those realms include art and devotion, text and textile, astral science and genealogy, classical epics and vernacular histories, and cyclical time and linear time. I then postulate that understanding this short scroll's ability to nimbly separate and join those realms can help us critically appreciate the forms, layouts, and functions of two other contemporaneous cloth scrolls from the same region that are considerably longer and also have received sparse scholarly attention. Ultimately, I show how micro studies of scrolls and scrolling practices can allow us to understand forms of knowledge in Mewar on the eve of British colonialism, and to participate in challenging certain perceptions of the region's past that remain inflected by James Tod's writings nearly two hundred years after their publication.

Schools of Empiricism

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 261-289
Author(s):  
Andreas Friedolin Lingg
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Mining District ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Scientific Observation ◽  
Useful Knowledge ◽  
Mining Town ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

Abstract Recent research emphasizes that empiricist approaches already emerged long before the seventeenth and eighteenth century. While many of these contributions focus on specific professions, it is the aim of this article to supplement this discourse by describing certain social spaces that fostered empiricist attitudes. A particularly interesting example in this respect is the mining region of the Erzgebirge (Saxony) in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. The following article will use this mining district as a kind of historical laboratory, as a space not only for scientific observation but also as a structure within which specific forms of knowledge were socially tested, to show how the economic transformation of this region supported the rise of characteristic elements of empiricist thinking. It is common practice to link the appraisal of useful knowledge, (personal) experience and the distrust towards (scholastic) authorities in those days with only small minorities. By addressing not only the struggles of the commercial elites but also the challenges faced by the average resident of a mining town, this paper tries to add to this view by demonstrating how entire masses of people inhabiting the late medieval Erzgebirge were affected by and schooled to think in empiricist ways.

Organizing Warfare and Diplomacy in Western India, 1778–83

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Manu Sehgal
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The Political ◽  
Western India ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Critical Component ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
The Military

This chapter examines the origins of a distinctive system of organizing military conquest in the final quarter of the eighteenth century. It seeks to de-centre the study of politics and military contestation by looking at the war against the Marathas (1778–82) from the vantage point of the region most directly affected by it—the western peninsular territory of the Bombay presidency. The advantage in shifting the focus away from the politically dominant Bengal presidency allows identification of a critical component in the political economy of conquest—the transfer of political authority from a civilian council to the commander of a military force. This shift in political power was essential to the success of the EIC regime of conquest even as it became a perennial source of conflict within the governing structures of the Company state. The debate and dissension that accompanied the deployment of military force both enabled the success of the machine of war and characterized the creation of a distinctive early colonial ideology of rule that subverted civilian control of the military.

Archibald MacLaren's “The Negro Slaves” and the Scottish Response to British Colonialism

1994 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Gale
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
British Government ◽  
British Colonialism ◽  
The Past ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Abolitionist Movement ◽  
Cultivation Technology ◽  
Seeds And Fruits

As the end of the eighteenth century approached, Britain experienced many changes in power and prestige: the American colonies had broken away; the philosophy of expansionism and imperial domination was being attacked from within and without, and the primacy of the British fleet and trade organizations was fast becoming a thing of the past. All of these factors, and others, forced a mood of re-evaluation upon the British government and people. Throughout the empire and its colonies the discussion of the merits and morality of the slave trade, for example, reached previously unheard of proportions, as the newly-rediscovered sciences of free-trade economics, moral philosophy, and cultivation technology turned towards the examination of slavery. Nowhere was this more active and adamant than in the Scottish university cities, which had become the centers of intellectual and scientific thought and practice. Thus it is no surprise to find this thematic focus upon the newly strengthened and emboldened Scottish stage. One manifestation was Archibald MacLaren's The Negro Slaves, a play in which can be found the seeds and fruits of the Scottish Enlightenment as it relates to the British abolitionist movement, the economic shift in overseas trade, and the overall milieu of colonial perception.

Banias and the British: the Role of Indigenous Credit in the Process of Imperial Expansion in Western India in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century

1987 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lakshmi Subramanian
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
State Building ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Western India ◽  
Senior Member ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
Trade And Exchange ◽  
English East India Company ◽  
Service Groups

The pressing preoccupation of the British administration in the early decades of the nineteenth century to clip the wings of the malicious Indian shroffs (Bankers) and their manoeuvres and secret dealings was in sharp and in a sense valid contrast to their earlierperceptions of the Indian shroffs and their Hundi empire. By 1807, Mr Rickards, senior member of the Bombay establishment, was urging the Governor-General in Council to establisha General Bank whose operations would extend throughout India, facilitate remittances andcredit transfers from one part of the country to another, and above all ‘free the mercantile body from losses and inconveniences suffered in the exchange and from the artifices of shroffs’. Their ‘undue and pernicious influence over the course of trade and exchange’ could no longer be treated with forbearance, and the urgency of remedy was stressed. It was both strange and ironical that such advice should stem from a quarter where in the crucial years of political change and transition in the second half of the eighteenth century, the cooperation and intervention of the indigenous banking fraternity and their credit support had proved vital to the success of the Imperial strategy. The experience was admittedly not unique to Bombay and the English East India Company (hence-forth E.E.I.C) and in a sense the guarantee of local credit and the support of service groups for a variety of reasons, was clearly envisagedas a basic ingredient to state building in the eighteenth century.

scholarly journals Sustainable Illumination for Baroque Paintings with Historical Context Considerations

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 8705
Author(s):  
Pedro Luengo
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seasonal Changes ◽  
Light Exposure ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Zero Energy ◽  
Museum Displays ◽  
Zero Energy Building ◽  
Sustainable Conservation ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Selection Of

The topic of museum illumination and conservation has been richly developed in recent years to take steps toward a zero-energy building concept. Most artworks preserved in museums’ expositions were designed for specifically defined light contexts, wherein daylight and seasonal changes were part of the artistic effect, an issue which has received little scholarly attention. From this premise, this paper aims to prove that defining the original illuminative context of artworks is required for a sustainable conservation, perception, and ultimate interpretation. To do this, a selection of seventeenth and eighteenth century churches and palaces from Europe, the Americas, and Asia will be presented using modern conservation frameworks for artworks. The results demonstrate that both aspects, chosen materials and light exposure, were connected, allowing the spaces to be effective without consuming too much electric lighting. This leads to a discussion about if museum displays should incorporate this context, if it is a more sustainable solution, and if it presents the artworks more accurately to visitors, even as other problems may arise.

scholarly journals Melodrama and Narrative Fiction: Towards a Typology

2014 ◽  
Vol 132 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Straub
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Narrative Fiction ◽  
Prose Fiction ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Prose Narratives ◽  
Narrative Prose ◽  
Anglophone World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Abstract Recent research on melodrama has stressed its versatility and ubiquity by approaching it as a mode of expression rather than a theatrical genre. A variety of contexts in which melodrama is at work have been explored, but only little scholarly attention has been paid to the relationship between melodrama and novels, short stories and novellas. This article proposes a typology of melodrama in narrative prose fiction, examining four different categories: Melodrama and Sentimentalism, Depiction of Melodramatic Performances in Narrative Prose Fiction, Theatrical Antics and Aesthetics in Narrative Prose Fiction and Meta-Melodrama. Its aim is to clarify the ways in which melodrama, ever since its early days on the stages of late eighteenth-century Europe, has interacted with fictional prose narratives, thereby shaping the literary imagination in the Anglophone world.

Survival and Abolition: The Eighteenth Century Paraguayan Encomienda

1981 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Schofield Saeger
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
High Position ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Future ◽  
Short Run ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scholarly Attention

The history of the encomienda is an oft' told tale, although certain questions about the institution still provoke debate. Even the Paraguayan encomienda has received conscientious scholarly attention, most of which concentrates on the Habsburg period rather than the eighteenth century, when the institution had been eliminated in many areas.But in eighteenth century Paraguay the encomienda was still an important institution. Members of the provincial elite placed great value on its possession. Since high position in the province was synonymous with encomendero status, membership in the encomendero class was exceedingly important. The crown's decision to abolish the system in the 1770s had important consequences for the future of Paraguay. In the short run it meant a gain for royal interests; in the long run it spelled disaster for the Spanish crown.

scholarly journals Role of Sufi Saints in North –Western India

IJOHMN ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Dr R. Subramony
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Western India ◽  
Mughal Empire ◽  
Indian History ◽  
Northern India ◽  
North Western ◽  
Cultural Structure

The eighteenth century in Indian History is characterized as an epoch of political anarchy and social chaos that spread unchecked in the wake of the collapse of the Mughal empire. But disintegration of the imperial center and its administrative institutions did not produce any profound effect on the pre-existing pluralistic socio-cultural structure, which was distinguished by widespread Hindu-Muslim unity and culture syncretism in northern India.

scholarly journals Titler, typografi og andre tilpasninger

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Charlotte Appel
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Emerging Market ◽  
Physical Appearance ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Great Care ◽  
Know How ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
Explicit Reference ◽  
Title Pages ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Charlotte Appel: Titles, typography and other adjustments. A study of Morten Hallager as a media-savvy publisher of Danish books for children during the last decades of the eighteenth century This article investigates the involvement of Morten Hallager (1740–1803) in the book business, and how he contributed to shaping a new commodity in Denmark: books for children. Until recently, Hallager has not attracted much scholarly attention due to a traditional focus on authors who made original contributions to Danish literature. However, Hallager’s combined experience as a printer (1771–84), a schoolteacher (from 1785) and an expert in German and French gave him a unique background to act as a transnational agent, introducing European Enlightenment literature for children (by J. H. Campe, C. K. J. Dassel, K. T. Thieme, A. Berquin etc.) to Danish readers. After an outline of Hallager’s life and career, the article presents a survey of his publications. He was particularly active as an author, translator, compiler and publisher of books for children c.1791–1804 (his last books were published posthumously), and during this period he published 38 individual titles – and 57 editions in all (including 19 second or later editions) – corresponding to c.11 per cent of all Danish titles for a young readership. Four main types of intervention that characterise Hallager’s books for children are analysed. First, he took great care over titles and the contents of title pages. Most of them would include an explicit reference to ‘child’, ‘children’ or ‘youth’, and Hallager would present himself as a schoolteacher and thus an expert in the field. Next, when it came to the physical appearance of the books, Hallager made use of his professional know-how. His initial success, a small reader in sextodecimo from 1791 (reprinted ten times), for example, demonstrated how he made choices concerning format, typeface etc. Third, Hallager made a number of pedagogical adjustments to the translated texts, reflecting his ambition to be as specific and concrete as possible and also to include variety, so that his young readers were never bored. Fourth, the article maps his impressive range of strategies with regard to translating, transforming and ‘localising’ foreign texts, so that they would become more digestible and relevant for a Danish audience. Finally, the conclusion argues that Hallager’s experience in every role and every position within Robert Darnton’s famous communication circuit (1982) was a key to his success – and may explain his wish to explicate his publishing strategies in great detail. For this reason, a study of Hallager’s publications provides us with new insights not only into his own book business but also into the emerging market for children’s books in general.

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