Pitt’s World History Center to Present Lecture on Evolving Concept of Civilization

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh World History Center will present a seminar featuring Sucheta Mazumdar, associate professor in the Department of History at Duke University in Durham, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. March 22 in Room 3703, Posvar Hall, 230 S. Bouquet St., Oakland. 

In her lecture, titled “The Civilizational Model of World History and the Challenge of the Global, ” Mazumdar will explore the invention of the concept of civilization and its evolution and development since the late 18th century in Europe and America. 

Mazumdar is trained in Chinese and Indian history and Asian American studies. Her publications include From Orientalism to Postcolonialism: Asia-Europe and the Lineages of Difference (Routledge, 2009); Sugar and Society in China: Peasants, Technology and the World Market (Harvard University Press, 1998, translated into Chinese, 2009); and Antinomies of Modernity, Essays on Race, Orient, and Nation (Duke University Press, 2003). She was one of the editors of Making Waves: Writings By and About Asian American Women (Beacon Press, 1989). She is currently at work on the monograph From the Slave Trade to the Opium Rush: “China Trade” in the Making of the Americas. 

She is founding editor of the South Asia Bulletin, serving from 1981 to 1993, and of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, serving from 1993 to 2002. 

Mazumdar received her BA, MA, and PhD degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles. 

For more information, visit www.worldhistory.pitt.edu. 

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