Abstract:

‘Greater India’ was a transimperial, Indocentric research paradigm that informed the colonial recovery of the ancient past in Central and Southeast Asia. This talk provides an overview of the transimperial roots and transnational manifestations of the idea of Greater India. It brings together three stories that are usually told separately: the archaeological quest for the Buddhist past along the ancient Silk Roads, the linked projects of colonial archaeology in Dutch and French Southeast Asia; and the intellectual history of anti-colonial nationalism and internationalism in interwar British India.Featuring a cast of Indian and European intellectuals, art historians and archaeologists who were each invested in India’s past for different reasons, my work challenges our understanding of the legacies of Orientalist scholarship and examines the genealogy and politics of an influential vision of history that continues to shape debates today.

Bio:

Yorim Spoelder is a lecturer at Freie Universität Berlin and currently an early-career postdoctoral fellow affiliated with the Max Weber Forum in Delhi. Spoelder’s research focuses on the modern connected histories of Europe, South and Southeast Asia and his main interests include transimperial history, the history of knowledge, urban history, cultural history and critical heritage studies. Spoelder previously held various fellowships at Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, IHEID Geneva, was a guest scholar at EHESS Paris, and affiliated as a researcher with the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. More recently, Spoelder was a visiting postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies (UCL) and the German Historical Institute in London, a Lee Kong Chian Research Fellow at the National Library Singapore, a Leigh Fermor House Fellow (Benaki Museum Athens), and a postdoctoral research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Rome. His first monograph Visions of Greater India was awarded the EuroSEAS Humanities Book Prize in 2024. Spoelder regularly contributes to the Asian Review of Books.