Environmental Humanities Colloquium: Sovereignty at the Margins: Precarious Lives in the Bengal Delta

Malcolm Sen (University of Massachusetts-Amherst) presents a talk on the Bay of Bengal which is beset by flooded megacities and extreme erosion. Rising seas have washed away a number of islands in the Sundarbans archipelago, which provides sanctuary for the endangered Bengal tiger and for thousands of human refugees. The encroaching waters test not only the limits of human and animal endurance, but also of political configurations such as sovereignty.