Uponita. Introduction

Hello Everyone,
I am a Ph.D student at Columbia University and work on the history of criminal detection in British India between the late 19th and early 20th century. In my research I examine the ways in which legal ideas of evidence emerged at the interface of police work and forensic scientific research. I am really excited to participate in the summer school this year – the year’s theme, Life and Death, dovetails with my interest in understanding how medical jurisprudence and toxicology emerged in the colony as significant fields of research and training in response to an unprecedented ascendance of the human body as a prime site for the production of legally admissible ‘material’ evidence in police inquiries and criminal trials. I look at how the expertise of doctors, and later chemists, were eagerly sought by the colonial authorities to make dead bodies speak the truth of crime, and how these experts worked together with lay policemen, lawyers and judges to detect crime in the hot and humid tropical climates of the colony. I am looking forward to the summer school; meeting all the participants and talking about life and death in beautiful, sunny Ischia!