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Durba Ghosh

Mohandas Gandhi has inspired nonviolent civil disobedience around the globe, yet his ideas were formed in dialogue with Indian radicals who believed in political violence. In the Society for the Humanities’ Annual Invitational Lecture, Cornell historian Durba Ghosh will show how the line between violence and nonviolence was constantly being negotiated and reshaped in India’s anticolonial struggle against the British.

Ghosh’s talk, “Gandhi and the Terrorists: The Politics of Violence and Anticolonial Protest,” will be held at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 4 in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. A reception will follow at A.D. White House. The event is free and open to the public.

An expert on the history of colonialism on the Indian subcontinent, Ghosh has written extensively on gender, culture, law, archives and colonial governance in 18th- and 19th-century India. An associate professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences, she teaches courses on modern South Asia, the British empire, gender, colonialism and Gandhi.

Her research focuses on popular and radical political movements in early and mid-20th century India and the ways in which violence against the British colonial state became an important, but historically underemphasized, form of protest. She also examines the ways political violence becomes a central part of popular historical narratives.

Ghosh received her bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University in 1989. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1994) and a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley (1994). She is the author of “Sex and the Family in Colonial India: The Making of Empire” (2006) and co-editor with Dane Kennedy of “Decentring Empire: Britain, India and the Transcolonial World” (2006). Ghosh is the 2008 recipient of the Robert and Helen Appel Fellowship for Humanists and Social Scientists.

The Society for the Humanities’ Annual Invitational Lecture is designed to give a Cornell audience a chance to hear from a distinguished faculty member.

Linda B. Glaser is a staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.