The East India Company and the Natural World
Workshop held by the Centre for World Environmental History
University of Sussex
Friday 8th June 2007, Russell Buildings 33
10.45 - 11.00 Introduction: Vinita Damodaran (University of Sussex)
11. 00 - 12.00 Panel 1: EIC as agents of environmental change
Vinita Damodaran (University of Sussex)
Settlement narratives of Singhbhum and the collection of
ethnographic knowledge
Daniel Rycroft (University of East Anglia)
Sherwill and the construction of an imperial landscape: the
Rajmahal Hills in the mid nineteenth century
Discussant: Pauline von Hellermann (University of Sussex)
12.00 - 13.00 Panel 2: EIC and scientific networks.
Deepak Kumar (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Botanical Explorations and the East India Company:
Revisiting Plant Colonialism
Mark Harrison (Oxford University)
Beyond the Boundaries of Empire: Nathaniel Wallich (1786-
1854) and the Transmission of Botanical Knowledge to Europe
Discussant: Alan Lester (University of Sussex)
13.00 - 14.00 Lunch
14.00 - 15.00 Panel 3: EIC and scientific networks.
Jim Endersby (Cambridge University)
'A sort of wicked satisfaction': Joseph Hooker and the Flora
Indica
Henry Noltie (Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh)
Robert Wight and his European collaborators
Discussant: Alan Lester (University of Sussex)
15.00 - 16.00 Panel 4: EIC Administrative responses: Irrigation and Flood
Control
Rohan DSouza (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Mischievous River and Evil Shoals: The East India Company and
the Bengal Rivers
Peter Mollinga (University of Bonn)
Learning and unlearning in water resources management history
in South Asia: the cases of irrigation and flood control
Discussant: Esha Shah (Institute of Development Studies)
16.00 - 16.30 Tea
16.30 - 17.00 Panel 5: EIC and observations of environmental change
Alfred Grove (Cambridge University)
The complexity of the El Niño-Indian famine relationship
in the era of the East India Company
Discussant: Don Funnell (University of Sussex)
17.00 - 18.00 Roundtable discussion