The Sea & Civilisations: Origins of a Globalised World

Culture and Heritage
History, Culture
Panel Discussion
Wednesday, 30th March 2016
From 12:30pm to 2:00pm (IST)
Gateway Building, Stevens Road, Next to Royal Bombay Yacht Club, Apollo Bunder, Mumbai - 400005.
Free

Details

From ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to the Indus valley and the more recent Cold War era, the rise and fall of these grand civilisations can be traced to the sea. Lincoln Paine, Maritime Historian, Editor, Curator and Author of Sea & Civilisation reacquaints us with great seafaring cultures of yesteryear to reveal how people first came into contact with one another by ocean and river, and how goods, languages, religions, and entire cultures spread across and along the world’s waterways. Together with Sifra Lentin, Writer and Historian, they will navigate the inextricable connection between the ocean and world civilisation and trace the maritime histories of India and the subcontinent to chart contemporary systems of liberal trade, commerce and foreign policy in today’s Asia-centric and globalised world. Poet, Curator and Cultural Theorist, Ranjit Hoskote will moderate the discussion.

Faculty

Lincoln Paine

Lincoln Paine

Historian, Author, Editor, and Curator

Lincoln Paine is a maritime historian, author, editor, and curator whose books include the award-winning The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World (2013), Down East: A Maritime History of Maine (2000), and Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia (1997). He is also an editor of Itinerario: International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction. He has lectured on a wide range of maritime topics, including literature of the sea, exploration, museum curatorship, decorative arts, maritime law, trade, and naval history, in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. A graduate of Columbia College, he spent fourteen years as a non-fiction and reference book editor and currently specializes in editing academic writing by non-native speakers of English. He is a trustee of the Maine Maritime Museum and formerly served on the boards of the Portland Stage Company and The Telling Room, a nonprofit writing center for children and young adults.

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Sifra Lentin

Sifra Lentin

Author & Bombay History Fellow at Gateway House Moderator, Journalist & Editor 

Sifra (Samuel) Lentin is a Mumbai-based writer and historian, and the Mumbai History Fellow at Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. She graduated in English from Elphinstone College, Mumbai, and went on to complete her Bachelor’s in General Law (BGL) from the Government Law College, Mumbai. She has written for a wide spectrum of Bombay-based newspapers and magazines – most notably Mid-Day, The Times of India, The Sunday Observer, Hindustan Times, Taj Magazine, JetWings and One India One People. She has also been published in two books: MARG’s ‘Indian Jewish Heritage – Ritual, Life-Cycle & Art’(2002), and One India One People’s book on Communities of India (2006). Her recent work has been the Indian Navy’s Western Fleet coffee table book ‘A Salute To The Sword Arm – A Photo Essay On The Western Fleet’ (April 2007). She is also on the Board of Trustees of the Sir Jacob Sassoon School (Byculla, Mumbai)

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Ranjit Hoskote

Ranjit Hoskote

Cultural Theorist, Curator and Poet

Ranjit Hostoke is a cultural theorist, curator and poet. He is the author of more than 25 books, including Vanishing Acts: New & Selected Poems 1985-2005 (Penguin, 2006) and Central Time (Penguin/ Viking, 2014), and the monographs Zinny & Maidagan: Compartment/ Das Abteil (Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/ Walther König, 2010) and Atul Dodiya (Prestel, 2014). Hoskote has translated the poetry of the 14th-century Kashmiri mystic Lal Ded as I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded (Penguin Classics, 2011). With Ilija Trojanow, he has co-authored Kampfabsage (Blessing, 2007; in English as Confluences: Forgotten Histories from East and West, Yoda, 2012). With Nancy Adajania, he is co-author of The Dialogues Series (Popular, 2011), an unfolding programme of conversations with artists. With Maria Hlavajova, he is editor of Future Publics: A Critical Reader in Contemporary Art (BAK, forthcoming). Since 1993, Hoskote has curated 30 exhibitions of contemporary art, including two monographic surveys of Atul Dodiya (Bombay: Labyrinth/ Laboratory, Japan Foundation, Tokyo, 2001; and Experiments with Truth: Atul Dodiya, Works 1981-2013, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, 2013), a lifetime retrospective of Jehangir Sabavala (National Gallery of Modern Art, Bombay and New Delhi, 2005-2006), a historical survey of Indian abstraction, Nothing is Absolute (with Mehlli Gobhai; CSMVS/ The Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay, 2013), and a survey of 150 years of art by Parsi artists within the narrative of an emergent Indian modernism, No Parsi is an Island (with Nancy Adajania; National Gallery of Modern Art, Bombay, 2013-2014). Over 2000-2002, Hoskote co-curated the trans-Asian collaborative project, ‘Under Construction’ (Japan Foundation: Tokyo and other Asian centres). Hoskote co-curated the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008) He was curator of India’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2011). And a jury Member of the 56th Venice Biennale.

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Collaborations

Gateway House
Gateway House
U.S. Consulate General Mumbai
U.S. Consulate General Mumbai

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The Sea & Civilisations: Origins of a Globalised World

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