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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE POSTCOLONIAL WORLD
Brian Larkin, "How to Spell Mohammedan"
Tuesday January 29, 2013 | 03:15 -05:00 PM | 50

Brian Larkin will speak informally on a work in progress:

How to spell Mohammedan? Note on circulation, standardisation & the documentary production of Empire.

In 1923 the Colonial Office sent out a circular to colonial territories with the aim of finding out and standardising how to spell the word Mohammedan. I use this relay of document and the files it generated in repsonse as an exampel fo what I term the media architecure of Imperial rule. In this preliminary set of observations I seek to analyze how issues of circulation, standardisation, and the control and movement of files constitute empire as a modern system of administration.