The Invention of Rivers: Alexander's Eye and Ganga's Descent

CASI-Related Event

A Book Talk with the Author
The event is free and open to the public (please show photo ID at entrance)

Dilip da Cunha
Architect and Planner
Class of 1978 Pavilion | Kislak Center | Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, 6th floor
3420 Walnut Street
Philadelphia PA 19104

About the Author:
Dilip da Cunha is an architect and planner working out of Philadelphia and Bangalore. He teaches at Harvard University and Columbia University and is author with Anuradha Mathur of Mississippi Floods: Designing a Shifting Landscape; Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary; and Design in the Terrain of Water.

About the Book:
Featuring more than 150 illustrations, many in color, The Invention of Rivers (PennPress, 2018) integrates history, art, cultural studies, hydrology, and geography to tell the story of how rivers have been culturally constructed as lines granted special roles in defining human habitation and everyday practice.

"The Invention of Rivers is a radical and timely book that will stimulate considerable debate on matters of the greatest contemporary urgency."—Arjun Appadurai, New York University

"A highly original argument and extraordinary piece of scholarship that comes at a time when rain is behaving unpredictably and challenging humanity's attempt to contain it within banks. It offers an alternative way of thinking about our relationship with the hydrological cycle and of living with wetness."—Lindsay Bremner, University of Westminster


Co-sponsored by:

The Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture Series is an endowed public program of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI). Launched in the 2007-08 academic year, and made possible through the generous support of the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, the series brings renowned India specialists to the Penn community and serves as a critical forum for analyzing and understanding the complex economic, political, social, and cultural changes that the world’s largest democracy is experiencing, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
The Saluja Global Fellows Program has been made possible by the generous gift from Vishal Saluja ENG’89 W’89. CASI was excited to launch the program during the 2022–23 academic year, coinciding with the Center’s 30th Anniversary. This new program enables CASI to invite eminent leaders and rising experts on contemporary India preferably from the fields of media, culture, law, and contemporary history to be in residence for one to two weeks at CASI.