ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter discusses the different ways the volume approaches and tracks ‘sensibilities’ and the ‘modern’ through their multiple intersections with history, culture and politics in the connected regions of Assam, Bengal and Orissa (Odisha) between the 16th and 20th centuries. It also indicates the varied perspectives and understandings of history and culture, politics, culture and cultural politics, historical pasts, memory and time, and orality, print and performance shore up its 13 chapters. The discussion is complemented by an analysis of the historian Gautam Bhadra’s life as a teacher and scholar, and the suggestive insights of his work that this volume extends.
