Gender, Race and Science in Twentieth-Century India: E. K. Janaki Ammal and the History of Science

Abstract

The article discusses the role of Indian woman scholar E. K. Janaki Ammal in the historiography of environmental history studies in India. She was a professor of botany as well as a geneticist at University Botany Laboratory in Madras, India and was notable as being a women scientist invited to participate at the 1955 conference resulting in the book of the same name Man’s role in changing the face of the earth, edited by W. L. Thomas. Subjects considered include gendered history, twentieth-century history of science, and the impact of colonialism and post-colonialism on intellectual history. The relationship between Ammal and her mentor English biologist C. D. Darlington is explored.