PHAIS Seminar Series Week 19: Dr Mobeen Hussain (History)

The PHAIS Seminar Series meets weekly in term time to discuss a paper by a visiting Philosopher, Historian, Art Historian or a member of our academic staff.

Skin embodiment, cosmetic dabbling and chemical experimentation in colonial India

Dr Mobeen Hussain, University of York

Taking contemporary commercial skin-lighteners and skin-lightening agents as a starting point, this paper explores the ranges of debates around the use and regulation of chemicals and new products in colonial India (from c.1900). It looks at the ways in which middle-class women experimented with chemicals and dabbled in nuskhas (prescriptions/recipes) to make concoctions that worked on the skin whilst considering how other actors, from colonial authorities and social reformers to foreign companies, responded circulating materia medica, chemicals, and branded products. These practices and responses informed broader conversations about class, conjugality, Indian womanhood, nationalism(s), anti-colonial activism, and global commerce. 

Biography

Mobeen Hussain is a historian of the British Empire with expertise on race, gender, medicine, and corporeal consumption in South Asia. she is a Wellcome Trust Early Career Research Fellow at the University of York working on women's engagement with indigenous medicine. She is currently writing her first book Performing Fairness on race, colourism, embodiment, and skin-lightening in colonial India. Mobeen also works on legacies issues, material and literary cultures, public history, and colonial collections.

The seminar will be delivered in person, but a Zoom link will be available for those who wish to attend remotely.