National Parks in a Comparative Perspective

Gillian Russell is an undergraduate student and Paterno Fellow at Penn State University who is double majoring in Anthropological Sciences and Global and International Studies. Her interests are very broad, but they center on topics such as history, culture, conservation, environmental advocacy, and public outreach. She is currently working on her honors thesis which will be about human-environmental interactions in National Parks around the world, with a focus on indigenous land rights. In Gillian’s free time, she enjoys running, knitting, kayaking, reading, hiking, and listening to music.

Prakash Kumar is Associate Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University. He is a specialist of South Asian history with interest in science and technology, colonial history, development, and agrarian and rural modernization. His first book, Indigo Plantations and Science in Colonial India (Cambridge University Press, 2012), complicates the history of colonial “improvement” by examining global knowledge flows and colonial science on the indigo plantations established by European planters in colonial India. It examines the claims of the planters that “natural” indigo made on plantations was superior to the cheaper and purer synthetic indigo launched on the international markets in 1899.