The Architecture of Sovereignty: Making and Unmaking the British Empire in India

Swati Chattopadhyay (University of California-Santa Barbara)

Professor Chattopadhyay’s lecture is an invitation to consider the process by which sovereignty in the modern era is constituted through visual and spatial means. Drawing on the archive of the long career of the British empire in India, Chattopadhyay examines the affective investment in land and territory that enabled the exercise of sovereignty. The argument is anchored in two sets of architectural events: first, the destruction of the Palace of Tipu Sultan in Mysore in the aftermath of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War (1798-99) and the coeval construction of Government House in Calcutta (1803), and second, the making of the Memorial Well Monument in Kanpur (1863) in the aftermath of the Sepoy Rebellion (1857-59) and its unmaking between 1947 and 1950. These events, in precipitating crises of sovereignty, are opportune moments to reflect on the conditions that reside at the core of sovereign claims, colonial or otherwise.

All are welcome to this public lecture, which will be followed by a reception and a moderated Q&A in the Slocum Atrium.

Chattopadhyay’s lecture is generously supported by the Syracuse University Humanities Center, the School of Architecture, Department of Art and Music Histories, and South Asia Center.

(Photo: Entry to the Kanpur Memorial Well Monument, 2022-Swati Chattopadhyay)

RELATED: Chattopadhyay leads a specialized workshop on Sept. 11.

This event is part of the Humanities Center’s 2024-2025 Syracuse Symposium series on “Community.”

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