Debjani Bhattacharyya: ATMOSPHERIC POLITICS IN THE INDIAN OCEAN

13:00 Uhr | 28. APRIL 2023

Guest lecture of the Early Modern Financial History Seminar in cooperation with the Master Epistemologies of Science and Technology and IFK Wien

Venue: Zoom or IFK Wien, Reichratsstraße 17, 1010 Vienna

 

In this talk Debjani Bhattacharyya shows how the underwriting practices that developed with Britain’s imperial expansion in the Indian ocean critically shaped the very parameters of meteorology in the early 19th century. Analyzing navigational journals and insurance cases fought in the marine courts in India and the admiralty courts in London, the talk reflects on why tropical cyclones, instead of becoming limits to be overcome through scientific forecasting, were instead financialized and made profitable through a brisk and thriving underwriting business. Bridging economic and environmental history, the talk documents how the very modalities and frameworks for assessing climate disturbance emanated out of these webs of insurance and trade that enveloped the globe during this period.

 

Debjani Bhattacharyya holds the chair for the history of the Anthropocene at University of Zürich. She is the author of Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The Making of Calcutta (Cambridge, 2018). Currently she is working on the entanglement of climate and insurance from the latter half of the 19th century.

 

THE LECTURE WILL BE HYBRID.

 

To participate via Zoom you need to register for the meeting with your name and email address. To register, please click us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkcO6orj8rE93o-puLXLINGus_QeHHYdlr The zoom link will be sent to you by e-mail immediately afterwards.

 

To participate in person, we kindly ask you to register via email to registration@ifk.ac.at.

 

www.ifk.ac.at/index.php/kalender-detail/guest-lecture-atmospheric-politics-in-the-indian-ocean.html

13:00 Uhr | 28. APRIL 2023
Guest lecture of the Early Modern Financial History Seminar in cooperation with the Master Epistemologies of Science and Technology and IFK Wien
Venue: Zoom or IFK Wien, Reichratsstraße 17, 1010 Vienna

In this talk Debjani Bhattacharyya shows how the underwriting practices that developed with Britain’s imperial expansion in the Indian ocean critically shaped the very parameters of meteorology in the early 19th century. Analyzing navigational journals and insurance cases fought in the marine courts in India and the admiralty courts in London, the talk reflects on why tropical cyclones, instead of becoming limits to be overcome through scientific forecasting, were instead financialized and made profitable through a brisk and thriving underwriting business. Bridging economic and environmental history, the talk documents how the very modalities and frameworks for assessing climate disturbance emanated out of these webs of insurance and trade that enveloped the globe during this period.

Debjani Bhattacharyya holds the chair for the history of the Anthropocene at University of Zürich. She is the author of Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The Making of Calcutta (Cambridge, 2018). Currently she is working on the entanglement of climate and insurance from the latter half of the 19th century.

THE LECTURE WILL BE HYBRID.

To participate via Zoom you need to register for the meeting with your name and email address. To register, please click us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkcO6orj8rE93o-puLXLINGus_QeHHYdlr The zoom link will be sent to you by e-mail immediately afterwards.

To participate in person, we kindly ask you to register via email to registration@ifk.ac.at.

www.ifk.ac.at/index.php/kalender-detail/guest-lecture-atmospheric-politics-in-the-indian-ocean.html

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