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CHS is organises special lecture by Emile Chabal

CHS is organises special lecture by Emile Chabal

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CHS is organises special lecture by Emile Chabal
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Centre for Historical Studies
School of Social Sciences

 

Special Lecture

 

Being Communist
The Political Apprenticeship of Eric Hobsbawm

 

Emile Chabal
University of Edinburgh

 

Room no: 326, Committee Room, CHS, SSS-III
9th February 2018, 4pm (Friday)

 

Abstract: By the time he died in 2012, Eric Hobsbawm was one of the best-known historians in the world. And yet he achieved this distinction without ever formally renouncing his Communism. He repeatedly claimed that his lifelong adherence to Communism had to do with his political awakening in 1930s Germany; he was, he claimed, a child of the Weimar Republic and interwar anti-fascism. But how credible is this story? In this paper, I take a closer look at Hobsbawm's political apprenticeship and show that, while he was emotionally tied to his Weimar days, his political commitment cannot be understood without reference to the overlapping social worlds of British, European and transnational student Communism.

 

About the Speaker: Emile Chabal is a Chancellor's Fellow in History at the University of Edinburgh. He is a specialist on postwar French and European history. He has published widely on French politics, including A Divided Republic: nation, state and citizenship in contemporary France (Cambridge, 2015). He is currently working on an intellectual biography of Eric Hobsbawm and the history of global Marxism in the twentieth century.

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.