Professor Susan Bayly has been honoured with the publication of a collection of essays edited by former students and colleagues from the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.
Entitled An Anthropology of Intellectual Exchange, the book recognises Professor Bayly’s scholarly work in both Vietnam and India, and also marks the launch of an exciting new research initiative in which former Christ’s College Fellow Dr Joanna Cook is playing an active role.
The presentation of the book to Professor Bayly took place at the conclusion of a major international conference held at Christ’s which brought together distinguished scholars from several countries, including three eminent anthropologists from Vietnam.
Professor Bayly said:
“I’m thrilled beyond measure by the marvelous festschrift volume to which so many distinguished friends and colleagues have contributed. The editors have done remarkable things to make it all come together as a truly ground-breaking contribution to the field, with immense potential for continuing development in its exploration of intellectual exchange as concept, process and dynamic in a wonderfully diverse array of Asian contexts. And it’s an honour I can’t begin to feel I deserve that they have wanted to associate the concerns of my own research with that exciting new agenda they’re setting in train.”
Christ’s alumnus Sunil Amrith, Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History at Yale University, wrote in his foreword to the volume:
“It is fashionable to talk about boundary-crossing scholarship; Susan Bayly embodies it. Her oeuvre sits at the fruitful intersection between History and Social Anthropology – deeply archival yet richly ethnographic; conceptually sophisticated, yet never losing sight of the everyday.
It has also crossed the borders of area studies – between the study of South and Southeast Asia – earlier and more boldly than many others. This volume is a tribute to her enormous influence on multiple fields. In keeping with the spirit of Susan Bayly’s work, it is a volume that looks forward as much as back: it is pushing the frontiers of inquiry, towards a new history and anthropology of intellectual exchange.”
