Date:
Location:
"Sensing Village Life: Satellites, Lies, and Videotape in India"
Speaker:
Anthony Acciavatti, Diana Balmori Assistant Professor, Yale University.
Contact:
Sam Evans
samuel_evans@harvard.edu
Cosponsored by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Abstract:
This talk examines the overlooked story of the efforts to manage India’s human and natural resources during the 1960s and ‘70s. In particular, the presentation will discuss how and why a vast sensory infrastructure was established to synthesize subjective experiences and perceptions with on the ground nation-building programs. This multi-disciplinary undertaking attempted to couple celestial and terrestrial technologies to model everything from meteorological activity and agricultural production to peasant rationality and community development. The goal of the collection and interpretation of massive amounts of real-time data was to make informed national and regional planning policies.
Speaker Bio:
Anthony Acciavatti works at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and the history of science and technology. His first book, Ganges Water Machine: Designing New India’s Ancient River (2015), is the first comprehensive mapping and environmental history of the Ganges River Basin in over half a century. It was awarded the 2016 J. B. Jackson Book Prize. His forthcoming book, Republic of Villages, looks at the histories of science and environmental design in South Asia since the late-nineteenth century. He teaches at Yale University in the School of Architecture, where he is the Diana Balmori Assistant Professor.
Lunch is provided if you RSVP via our online form by close of business on Thursday, October 27:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe740BnzDfThwCzp-6O57xfGnW4bRbX3GZFogeVzjHXyPV6Kw/viewform
