Professor Soumyendra Nath Mukherjee

B.A. (Calc), B.A. (London), PhD (London), M.A, (Cambridge) F.R.Hist.S.
Honorary Visiting Professor in the Indian and Sub-continental Studies department
Brennan MacCallum Builiding, A18


Professor Mukherjee has 44 years of teaching and post-doctoral research experience. Before joining the department of History, Sydney, he was Agatha Harrison Memorial Fellow, St.Antony’s College, Oxford, University Assistant Lecturer in the History of South Asia, University of Cambridge, Editor, Nehru Papers, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, New Delhi, and Director, ICSSR (Indian Council of Social Science Research) project on the history of Calcutta, which was sponsored by the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

In 1988 Professor Mukherjee was appointed the Director of the Centre for Indian Studies, University of Sydney.

• Urban History
• Social History, with particular reference to Bengal in the nineteenth century
• History of Ideas - Europe and India
• Philosophy of History

• History of Calcutta
• Language and Logic of Bengali Discourse in the nineteeth century
• the Scottish Enlightenment and the ‘Bengal Renaissance’: Ideas, Institutions and Connections

Professor Mukherjee has written and /or edited and translated 23 books in the years between 1966 and 2002. He has also published over 100 articles and reviews in England, The Netherlands, USA, Italy, India and Australia, written in English and Bengali. Here we have a selection.

Books

• Sir William Jones, A Study in Eighteenth-Century British Attitudes to India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1968.
  
  Second and Revised edition, Orient Longman, Bombay, 1987
• Calcutta, Myths and History, Subarnarekha, Calcutta, 1977.
• Calcutta: ‘A City of Splendid Palaces and Dingy Streets’, Fiction as History,
  Basham Lecture 1986, ANU, Canberra, 1987.
• Calcutta: Essays in Urban History, Subarnarekha, Calcutta, 1993
• Citizen Historian, Explorations in Historiography, Sydney Studies 13, Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture and Manohar, Sydney and Delhi, 1996.
• Second and Revised edition by SASSC and Subarnarekha, Calcutta and Sydney, 2002.
  
  Images and Realities: Nineteenth-Century Calcutta in Bengali Literature, c1818-1910. Kuruvila Zachariah Memorial Lecture 2004, Presidency College, Calcutta, 2005.

Edited books

• St.Antony’s Papers, 18, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1966.
• (with Professor Sir Edmund Leach) Elites in South Asia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1970.
• (with Leach and John Ward) Feudalism: Comparative Studies, Sydney Studies 2, SASSC, Sydney, 1985.
• (with Professor Michael Allen) Women in India and Nepal, ANU, Canberra, 1982. Second and Revised edition by Sterling, New Delhi, 1990.
• (edited and translated with Marian Maddern), The Poison Tree, three novellas of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Penguin (India), New Delhi, 1996. Professor Mukherjee translated one of the novellas and wrote a long introductory essay on social and intellectual background of the novellas.

Articles

Most of Professor Mukherjee important articles are now included in various collections of essays, so they are not mentioned here. Most of his reviews appeared in learned journals all over the globe and some in newspapers in Calcutta. Since 1995, Professor Mukherjee has published three stories for children in English, two of them published in Victoria and one in New South Wales. Two important scholarly articles not included in any collections are: ‘A city in search of a Historian, an essay in historiography of Calcutta, c1950-2000’, Prachya, No 1, Vol 1. 2003. ‘Sahityer itihase upekhsita’, Desh, No 1, Vol 70, November 2002. (In Bengali.)

Teaching

Since his retirement Professor Mukherjee has helped to teach Asian Studies 1 and in 2000 shared a seminar course with John Ward on Feudalism, for History 4 students. In 2001 he gave lectures for History 3 students and took classes for Indian Studies.

Supervision

Between 1971 and 2007. Professor Mukherjee has supervised about 40 dissertations in History and Indian Studies for B.A. (Hons), M.A. (Pass). M.A, (Hons), M. Phil and PhD degrees. Two were from ANU, and one from UNSW. Since retirement he has supervised 2 PhDs, 3 M.Phils and 3 long essays for M.A. (Pass) and 2 B.A. (Hons) theses.

Professor Mukherjee has taken part in many international conferences in England, the USA, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, India and Australia. He organised many international conferences, starting in Oxford in 1964, when a seminar on the ‘Movement for National Freedom in India’ was held at St.Antony’s College and a selection of papers from this seminar was published in St.Antony’s Papers 18.

In 1968 while at Cambridge, Professor Mukherjee was involved in two conferences, as well as initiating one on the ‘Elites in South Asia’ with the proceedings published by the Cambridge University Press.

In Sydney Professor Mukherjee was involved in many workshops and conferences. Four of them are worth noting, through the Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture (founded by Professor Mukherjee), he organised a conference in 1984, on ‘Feudalism’ and Sir Edmund Leach gave the keynote address. In 1987 SASSC organised another workshop on ‘Revolution as History’ around a lecture given by Christopher Hill in Sydney as a guest of SASSC earlier that year. In 1989 Professor Mukherjee, as the Director of the Centre for Indian Studies, convened an international conference on Nehru and Non-alignment. Don Dunston of South Australia gave the keynote address. In 2006 as the President of the Oriental Society of Australia, he called a conference on ‘World Without Walls’ to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Society.

Indian studies

In 1974 Professor Mukherjee started a movement to establish a department of Indian Studies in the University of Sydney and started teaching Bengali for research students in History. In April 1975 the subcommittee on Indian Studies, convened by Professor Mukherjee, submitted their report to the Faculty of Arts. The Faculty accepted the recommendation to establish a department of Indian Studies. Since such a resolution was not acceptable to the VC of the time, the relevant committee for planning did not support it. The Faculty of Arts established, in 1978, an inter-departmental committee to teach Indian languages. By 1982 this committee were able to teach five Indian languages, Indian Philosophy, Indian History (based on sources written in Indian languages). In 1988 the Senate of the University of Sydney set up a new Centre for Indian Studies and the Vice Chancellor Professor Ward appointed Mukherjee as the Director of the Centre. In 1991 Indian Studies joined the new School of Asian Studies.

History

Professor Mukherjee taught history at all levels and for 15 years he offered evening courses, including Honours courses. He introduce many new and innovative thematic and interdisciplinary courses with colleagues from other areas of the department of History and members from English, Anthropology, Town and Country Planning, Economic History and Philosophy. Professor Mukherjee brought the Oxbridge type tutorial system to the department in the early 70s.

He was involved in many reforms within the Faculty of Arts and joined the move to democratise the administration of the University. He was active in many Faculty Committees. He was chairman of the postgraduate committee of the department of History, 1982-1984, and of School of Asian Studies 1991-1994. In 1982 he was Acting Head of History and many times for shorter periods he was acting Head of both the department of History and School of Asian Studies.

Professor Mukherjee has been active in many learned associations in Australia and founder of the Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Cultures (1979). It has been an association of concerned scholars encouraging interdisciplinary and interregional studies. So far they have published 23 volumes. Some of these publications received praise from all parts of the world, for originality and for breaking down the walls. He carried these ideas to the Oriental Society of Australia which culminated in the celebratory conference held last December called ‘World without Walls’.

Professor Mukherjee has been involved in community activities and helped to raise funds for Indian studies. In 1992 he was appointed to Board of the Australia-India Council and served in that capacity for 3 years.