Siddharth Pandey

Fellow during the summer term 2019

Project: Understanding the Influences of European Highland Material and Leisure Cultures in South Asian Hill Stations during the Late Nineteenth Century

Titled 'Understanding the Influences of European Highland Material and Leisure Cultures in South Asian Hill Stations during the Late Nineteenth Century', my project as a Research Fellow in Global History aims to initiate newer insights on the transnational influences of Europe across the Indian subcontinent's highlands by focusing on architecture, urban planning, and the emergent commercial and touristic cultures (museums, guidebooks, modes of travel, etc.) of the nineteenth century. These markers are fundamental to the identity and ethos of Indian hill stations, which have been held as the most curious and novel experimentation in urban history during the colonial era. Seven decades post-Independence, these hill stations continue to appeal to the general Indian and foreign psyche with their distinct understanding of material and leisure cultures, even as they have simultaneously indigenized into as "Indian" towns and cities as any other. Consequently, it becomes necessary to unravel the rich and variegated materially rooted global history in which these highland entities took birth. I approach this project both as a historian as well as an interdisciplinary researcher, having just finished a PhD in British Fantasy Literature and Materiality Studies at the University of Cambridge, that enabled me to think about imaginary and real spaces through numerous perspectives, be they anthropological, philosophical, sociological, visual or literary. I look forward to joining LMU and honing my expertise as a researcher on Indian hill stations, while simultaneously learning from a new setting and culture.