[Sci-tech-public] Modern Times, Rural Places seminar, May 6, 2005

[Margo Collett]

Modern Times, Rural Places:

Seminar Series at MIT



Peter Boomgaard

Senior Researcher, Royal Netherlands Institute of South East Asian and 
Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and Professor of Economic and Environmental 
History of Southeast Asia, University of Amsterdam

"The Man-Eating Tiger a Colonial Myth?  Four Centuries of Confrontation 
between Humans and Tigers"


Tigers are almost daily on television. These large, beautiful animals, with 
their cuddly cubs are an endangered specious, of which at present 7,000 
individuals have survived at the most, while once there were hundreds of 
thousands. Some people, therefore, find it hard to believe that they were 
ever a threat to humans. And yet stories about man-eating tigers prior to, 
let us say, the 1960s abound. Some scholars, therefore have concluded, that 
the man-eating tiger must have been a colonial myth. In this view, the 
European colonizers legitimized their presence in "the East" (and the 
killing of many tigers) by exaggerating the threat posed by "wild nature", 
which made their presence as protectors of the local population necessary. 
In my talk, I will look at what we know about hunting and man-eating in 
India and Indonesia between 1600 and now.


Friday, May 6, 2005

2:30 to 4:30 pm

MIT, Building E51 Room 095



Sponsored by MIT's History Faculty and the Program in Science, Technology, 
and Society
For more information or to be put on the mailing list, please contact Margo 
Collett at <mailto:mcollet at mit.edu>mcollett at mit.edu

For location visit http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg
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