Lecture Series

Willem van Schendel
on
Apparent Horizons: South Asia from Its Borderlands

Borders play a huge role in South Asian public imaginations and yet social scientists have done remarkably little research on South Asia’s borderlands. This lecture points to the need to understand borderlands as more than security concerns. Social science research is badly needed to humanize those important regions.

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Willem Van Schendel holds the chair in Modern Asian History at the University of Amsterdam and is in charge of the Master’s Programme in Contemporary Asian Studies. He also heads the South Asia Department of the International Institute of Social History. One of Prof Van Schendel’s research interests is borderland societies, resulting in a book entitled The Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia. His most recent book, published last year, is a survey history of Bangladesh.