The Journeys of Elephants: An Indian Circus Trail

The Yale Environmental History Colloquium features works-in-progress by Yale faculty, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and occasionally works by Yale Environmental History alumni and working group affiliates. Typically meeting 4-5 times per semester, the Colloquium offers participants an opportunity to workshop dissertation and book chapters, dissertation prospectuses, conference presentations, article drafts, and public humanities projects.

During this colloquium, Nisha Poyyaprath Rayaroth, a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow at the Yale MacMillan Center’s South Asian Studies Council and author of Jumbos and Jumping Devils: A Social History of Indian Circus (Oxford University Press, 2020) will be sharing an excerpt from her larger project on the social history of the circus in India. Her presentation will examine the physical cultures of human and animal performers in the circus industry and the ethical and legal debates that have coalesced around the issues of elephant captivity and elephant performance. It will be followed by a Q&A.

If you would like to join us for this in-person session, please register here.

Note: only Yale staff, students and faculty may attend in-person colloquia this year due to COVID-19 campus visitation policies.