From Calcutta to London: James Dinwiddie's Galvanic Circuits

in Simon Schaffer, Lissa Roberts, Kapil Raj & James Delbourgo, eds., *The Brokered World: Go-Betweens and Global Intelligence, 1770-1820* (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications), pp. 105-150, 2009

Global Intellectual History, 2017

In the course of a discussion of the 'phases of empire ' in his lectures of 1881-82 the then Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, J.R. Seeley, claimed that 'the history of the expansion of England must necessarily begin with the two ever-memorable voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama in the reign of Henry VII. From that moment the position of England among countries was entirely changed, though almost a century elapsed before the change became visible to all the world'. 1 Seeley's remark is of considerable interest from the perspective that occupies us here. In the first place, for the subtle manner in which it virtually reduces what he calls the 'Spanish-Portuguese age of colonial history' to a century-long lag of historical bunk beneath which the deeper meaning and consequences of the two momentous voyages awaits revelation in England's expansion. Columbus' discovery of America and Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India are thus recuperated as foundational markers within a teleological narrative of British history. Published in book form as The Expansion of England in 1883, Seeley's lectures were both an immediate bestseller in the mid 1880s, and a textbook of considerable influence beyond his lifetime. While the book's success alone ensured that it remained in print for over seventy years, its impact was also considerably augmented by the hold it consolidated over the educational sector, where it provided both the staple of teachers' readings and the authoritative text for the adaptations disseminated to a wider readership. More than any other, Richard Aldrich suggests, Seeley's book 'established imperialism as a central theme of modern British history, and in the public mind'. 2 But Seeley's history is of interest also for what it represents, in 1 J.R. Seeley, The Expansion of England: Two Courses of Lectures (London: MacMillan, 1883), p.123. 2 Richard Aldrich, 'Imperialism in the study and teaching of history' in 'Benefits Bestowed'? Education and British Imperialism ed. by J.A. Mangan (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), pp.23-38 (p.35); see also John M. MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire: The manipulation of British public opinion 1880-1960 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), pp.179-80. ideological terms, within British historiography itself. His is a British history centred on the expansion of England, and a vision of England decidedly centred in the Empire. And, in keeping with his attitude to the uses of history, it is a corresponding shift in the perspective on her past, for the sake of her future, that Seeley urges and ushers in. Confronting Seeley, therefore, allows us both to take up, and simultaneously destabilise, the terms of reference imposed by the notion of 'British historical culture' along which the chapter is organised. It forces upon us the need to note the historically problematic nature of the concept of 'British' identity, not merely in respect of the imagined nature of all such constructs, but as regards the relations of England with Scotland and Ireland, and the dynamic and contradictory nature that 'Britishness' assumed in the imperial projection of those relations, in particular. 3 The Irish were both subjects and agents of empire. The Scots not only availed themselves of the opportunities afforded by colonial service, which the Union opened to them, but simultaneously launched themselves at the 'cultural invasion' of England. And if the contribution of the Scottish Enlightenment to historiography is here most directly pertinent, Irish literature, the 'national' orientations of school syllabuses, the diverse perceptions of separate and common history and relations, political and religious, with Europe, are no less so. The notion of British cultural memory, therefore, must pass through the cultural memories of each of the component parts of Great and Greater Britain as they embody and negotiate these contradictory relations. 4 In this respect, the discussion offered in these pages will prove distinctly Anglo-centric; only the awareness of its shortcoming offers any redeeming feature. Seeley's foregrounding of the imperial dimension in historical memory is useful in another way. Foreshadowing the creation of imperial history as an academic discipline, Seeley attempted to re-centre the historical perspective of British history in the empire. Its child, post-imperial commonwealth history, is now reversing the perspectives of imperial ideology to the deconstruction of British nationalism. 5 Reading Seeley, therefore, provides a timely reminder of the need to contextualise the discussion of the memory of da Gama against the double articulation of national with imperial historiographies and of historiographies with history. It is no less pertinent that William Julius Mickle championed da Gama's voyage in the context of the polemic over the East India Company's monopoly, and that notices of his book were read first in the context of the the war, and then of the loss of the trans-Atlantic colonies and the 'turn to the East', than it is that in 1897 British voices joined in the chorus of Portugal's 'Discovery of India' commemorations in tune to their own imperial jamboree in celebration of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, or that comment on da Gama's contested commemoration in 1997 should be received amidst the revisionism and reevaluation which accompanied the handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China and the symbolic 'final closure of a cycle of empire' which it was said to represent.

2014

In recent historiography of science, circulation has been widely used to weave global narratives about the history of science. These have tended to focus on flows of people, objects and practices rather than investigating the spread of universal patterns of knowledge. The approach has also, to a great extent, concentrated on colonial contexts and treated 'European science' as a more or less homogeneous knowledge realm. Furthermore, these studies of circulation have usually been tied to a contextualist view of knowledge formation in which locality is taken as a set of specificities linked with particular locations. In this article we redirect the focus of the discussion on circulation to Europe, and reference spaces that are often absent from other scholarly accounts. We will ground our discussion on a comparative study of three travelling actors from the European periphery through whom we will introduce the notion of 'moving locality' in order to depict circulation as a knowledge production process per se.

2015

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CURRENT SCIENCE-BANGALORE-, 1992

Indian Economic and Social History Review, 2011

Founded in 1690 as an entrepôt by the English East India Company, Calcutta has been at the intersection of a number of heterogeneous long-and short-range networks of trade, finance, diplomacy, law, crafts and learning. This article explores the history of the first century of its existence during which it grew from insignificance to become the second most important city of the British Empire. During this period Calcutta also emerged as a world-city of scientific knowledge making in botany, geology, geodesy, map-making, geography, history, linguistics and ethnology. Calcutta thus provides an excellent case study of the co-construction of knowledge and urbanity in the early modern context of globalisation. As a contact zone between different ethnic, professional and religious communities, each with their specific knowledge practices, this article shows that new forms of knowledge, many at the heart of the second scientific revolution, were produced in this city through attempts at recognising and managing difference in this cosmopolitan context.

Polónia, Bracht & Conceição, eds. Connecting Worlds: Production and Circulation of Knowledge in the First Global Age (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018), pp. 18-44, 2018

Through a comparison between Sir William Jones' initial intellectual project before his arrival in India and his Indian writings this chapter brings to light the crucial importance of place in the production of knowledge. Locality thus takes a central place in this analysis, and also helps shed light on the nature of its constitution: localities, in this perspective, are themselves not made of static elements, but rather are composed of multiple, differential, and conjuncturally changing long- and short-range circulations. These circulations, constructed on the material basis of trade and empire provide the basis for encounter, interaction and negotiation, which critically shape and reconfigure the nature and content of the knowledge produced.

2001

Please cite the published version. * Most of this conversation took place in the Heidelberg Castle gardens on 27th June 2001; it was continued two days later in the Studio of the Villa Bosch. The interview situation exposed us to a pivotal puzzle of science studies (and Wissenschaft more generally): the correspondence between world and words. To be turned into text, this exchange had to undergo several subsequent transformations: recording (contra stubborn technical devices), transcribing (with the help of Katharine Hoyler and Hinrich Helms) and editorial sculpting (of hyper-mobile pieces). However, all transformation is transient: it continues through your-the reader's-encounter with this text. 1 David N. Livingstone, The geographical tradition: episodes in the history of a contested enterprise (Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992). 2 For a brief summary of book reviews in over 20 geographical and history of science journals, see Charles W.J. Withers, 'Conversations in review', Ecumene 3 (1996) pp. 351-60, which includes two critical appraisals, by Jane Camerini and Michael Heffernan, as well as a reply to both by David Livingstone. See also the discussion under the general title 'Geographical traditions: rethinking the history of geography', in