Commemoration and Monument in Medieval India

What makes some kinds of objects, places, or symbols especially effective claims on history, heritage, and identity? Monuments were only one part of a larger set of features and practices associated with commemoration and memory in precolonial South Asia. Drawing on archaeology and landscape history, we can see how monumental spaces were built, used, and reused, providing clues to their both meanings and functions in past cultural worlds. This discussion sets the stage for a broader consideration of the practice and politics of heritage in medieval India. In partnership with the South Asia Center.

Mark Lycett, Ph.D., is an historical anthropologist and the Director of Penn’s South Asia Center. Previously he taught at the University of Chicago, where he was Director of the Program on the Global Environment, Academic Director of Chicago's South Asian Abroad Program, and Director of the Center for International Studies. He has extensive research experience in western North America and South Asia, including the Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey (1988–1997) and, more recently, work on landscape ecology, biodiversity, conservation, and the social lives of forests and forest products in peninsular India.

[Baathist_Brawler_]

Thank you professor for a wonderful lecture on a sorely neglected area of history. It is very difficult to find anything on this civilisation so this is a goldmine, in spite of the faulty audio. Videos like this prove that there are still some true academics left.

[diebesgrab]

I feel like it might not be a bad idea to implement some subtitles in case of a bad connection while this is still going on. I’m having a hard time following what he’s saying with all the audio dropout.

[TheNiravsdesai]

Dr. Lycett, I enjoyed your lecture, but I would really hope that you would learn to pronounce Indian words correctly.