Thanks to the Göttingen City Laboratory, in the context of which the lecture will be held, we were able to invite Dr. Neekee Chaturvedi from Jaipur (India), who provided important impulses for our theater piece AVAZ | VOICES and accompanied the whole project as a close cooperation partner from afar, to Göttingen.

Dr. Neekee Chaturvedi teaches history at the University of Rajasthan and heads the "Center for Museology and Conservation" there.

She researches early Buddhism and works on research projects on ethnic cultures, combining aspects of history, anthropology and culture. In her work, she seeks new interpretations of religious philosophy, human ecology, and explores their political contexts. Her publications include "Cultural Tourism and Bishnois of Rajasthan" and "Conserving Buddhist Heritage." She received the prestigious International SAARC Research Grant 2014-15, and is currently working on a research project on the socio-economic role of Buddhist monasteries in the Trans-Himalayan region of the Spiti Valley.

For AVAZ | VOICES, she explored the perspective of Indian soldiers sent to Europe to fight for the British Empire at the time of the First World War. Neekee Chaturvedi teaches in Rajasthan, which at that time was a so-called "princely state" that did not allow itself to be completely ruled by the colonial power.
 

Lecture at Forum Wissen

In English with German translation
Date: Sunday, June 11 at 4 p.m. at Forum Wissen, Vestibül, Berliner Straße 28

All Written Histories are Wrong - Perspectives from Rajasthan, India

Dr Neekee Chaturvedi shall present folk narratives as an important voice in history through examples from the desert region of Rajasthan. Being rulers, 'Rajputs' had become the focus of the colonial exercise of history writing. However, Rajasthani culture is not only that of the former ruling elite. Therefore, Chaturvedi shall discuss underlying social patterns and some unrecorded facets of history that can only be discovered in oral narratives from Rajasthan.