It has been quite some time since I’ve blogged on this site. BUT, as I am now a free bird (read ‘unemployed’), I have much more time to blog! Consider this the official notice that A Rootless Tree & Other Histories is once again an active blog. Hooray!
A Long Overdue Post
Over a month ago I was fortunate enough to attend a book launch at the Royal Ontario Museum. The title of the evening: “Raja Deen Dayal: Revealed.” The book: Raja Deen Dayal: Artist Photographer in 19th Century India by Dr. Deepali Dewan and Dr. Deborah Hutton. As you might imagine, I had a field day. … Continue reading
Endless Lines and Waiting Times
(From May 26th) Well, here’s Heathrow! Aaaand I have three hours until my next check-in. Basically, I’m bored. So I’ll take this opportunity to theorize! Before I left, one of my best friends urged me to spend some time in the airplane people-watching. We often have this conversation, and I always say I’m not … Continue reading
Vintage Indian Fashion
Vintage Indian Fashion I was trying to date a photograph with nothing to go on but the clothes in the image. Knowing very little about fashion history, and even less about Indian fashion history, I turned to that trusty source, the interwebs! I came across this blog, which has a fantastic range of images, from … Continue reading
Archive-Hopping
Hello! I know this has been a fairly silent blog for the past few months. Here’s why: in addition to a course overload, I’ve been planning a summer of research for both my internship and my MRE. It’s going to be a busy few months, but the experience of a lifetime. If you’re interested in … Continue reading
Cambodia, Kampuchea-In Pictures.
Originally posted on mostlycinema:
The unmistakeable silhouette of Angkor Wat.. The huge size of Angkor Wat means that there are desolate places like this to experience its surreal beauty. Troupe meeting. Reverence does not need a face. My peace be upon those in Myanmar who are killing in my name. One of the famed murals…
Originally posted on The Lakefront Historian:
At the risk of blaspheming as a historian, I declare that I dislike old stuff. I am growing impatient with public history’s traditional fetishization of physical objects and buildings. Certainly manuscripts, objects, and buildings serve a critical role in the historical record as access points for dynamic historical inquiry. …
Ideal as Real
Well, the nineteenth annual Underhill Graduate Colloquium, put on by the History Department at Carleton came to a close on Saturday morning. An all-round success I’d say! One of the panels I attended has stuck out to me in particular: “State of the Art: Archives, Museums, Colonial Records and the Ethics of Displaying the Past … Continue reading
For what shall I wield a dagger?
Over the (all-too-brief) reading week, I watched an Indian art-house film from 2002, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer. The film is set in 2001, around communal riots in an unspecified region of the country – somewhere near an unnamed hill station (!). Photography plays a significant role in the film, as the hero is a wildlife … Continue reading
“…and here I am an object among other objects.”
This is one of the opening sentences to the fifth chapter of Frantz Fanon’s White Skin, Black Masks – “The Lived Experience of the Black Man.” It brought to my mind the question of agency that’s been surfacing in a lot of my readings lately. So here’s a question: if the gaze of another, of … Continue reading
A Rootless Tree & Other Histories 