Bengalee in New York with prestigious "Toynbee Prize" for the year
2014. He is Dipesh Chakrabarty. Named after Arnold J. Toynbee, the
Toynbee Prize Foundation was chartered in 1987 "to contribute to the
development of the social sciences, as defined from a broad historical
view of human society and of human and social problems." Currently, it
is awarded every other year for work that makes a significant
contribution to the study of global history.
Dipesh Chakrabarty was chosen by unanimous consensus by the
Selection Committee of Toynbee Prize in last July acknowledging the
importance and influence of his work.
Dipesh Chakrabarty has taught at Chicago since 1995 and is a
scholar of South-Asian history, postcolonial studies and global
history. Best known for his 2000 volume 'Provincializing Europe', he
has made major contributionsto the historical fields at the core of
the Toynbee Prize Foundation's concerns. Epitomizing the mixture of
breadth and depth that distinguishes major historians, he is currently
at work both on a book project on the implications of the science of
climate change for historical and political thinking as well as two
other future projects on democracy and political thought in South-Asia
and the cultural history of Muslim-Bengalee nationalism. Dipesh
Chakrabarty received his Bsc honours degree from Presidency College,
Kolkata, a postgraduate diploma in Management from the Indian
Institute of Management, Kolkata and a PhD (History) from the
Australian National University.
Earlier recipients of Toynbee Prize are Jean-Paul Sartre, Raymond
Aron, William McNeill, Natalie Zemon Davis etc. But, for the first
time, a Bengalee has achieved this rare honour, who is from Kolkata
too. And so, it is a great honour for the city of joy Kolkata. Not
only that, Dipesh Chakrabarty will deliver Tanner lectures at Yale
University, one on 18th February, 2015 and the other on 20th February,
2015 on the role of human in climate change. Earlier, Umberto Eco,
Amartya Sen etc too delivered prestigious Tanner lectures - 2 rare
honour in the same year, happened for the first time.
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A. B.
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