Interview with Thomas R. Trautmann, Professor of History and Anthropology at the University of Michigan

INTERVIEW - Kinship and language: S. THEODORE BASKARAN: "He came under the influence of A.L. Basham at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and got interested in Indian studies. Trautmann’s first work Kautilya and the Arthasastra (1971) laid the foundation for his formidable reputation as a historian. His interest in Indian studies proved enduring, and his second book, Dravidian Kinship, came in 1982. This was followed by Lewis Henry Morgan and the Invention of Kinship (1985).

About Trautmann’s book Aryans and British India (1997), Aram A. Yengoyan wrote, “This is a creative and venturesome rethinking of issues of race, language and caste in the British colonial understanding of India.” His book The Aryan Debate (2007) focusses on the Aryan-Dravidian discourse. His last book on F.W. Ellis, The Dravidian Evidence (2008), drew a lot of scholarly attention and has been translated into Tamil. Trautmann has written a number of research papers on subjects relating to India such as the one titled “Elephants in Ancient India”.

His new book, F.W. Ellis and the Madras School of Orientalism (Oxford University Press), is due to be launched in Chennai on August 19. He was in Chennai in April and gave a talk, at the Roja Muthiah Research Library, on F.W. Ellis. S. Theodore Baskaran spoke to him about his scholarly pursuits."