From: "Frank Conlon" <conlon@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
To: <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 9:10 AM
Subject: H-ASIA: Professor Blair Bernard Kling (1929-2011)
> H-ASIA
> May 3, 2011
>
> Professor Blair Bernard Kling (1929-2011)
> ************************************************************************
> From: Frank Conlon <conlon@uw.edu>
>
> Professor Antoinette Burton has forwarded the following message sent out
> by the current chair of the Department of History of the University of
> Illinois - Urbana-Champaign:
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
> I am very sorry to convey the sad news from the Burial Society of the CU
> [Champaign-Urbana] Jewish Federation that Blair Kling passed away
> yesterday [May 2, 2011] at 10:55 pm.
>
> Blair taught with us for many years and he and his wife Julia have been
> dear colleagues and friends to many of us. The funeral will be held on
> Friday, May 6 at 11:00am at Sinai Temple with Rabbi Klein officiating.
> Interment will follow at Mount Hope Cemetery. For those interested in
> Blair's career and his life here in our community, an obituary should
> appear shortly. Shiva is planned and information in that regard will be
> available from Sinai Temple, Champaign.
>
> I am sure everyone joins me in extending our deepest sympathies to Blair's
> family on this loss.
>
> Jim Barrett, Chair
> Dept. of History
> UIUC
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ed. note: I first met Blair Kling in the autumn of 1965 at the old India
> Office Library in King Charles Street, London. At the time I was very
> perplexed at the seeming non-progress of my research even as I laid up
> hundreds of notes and foundered somewhat in the ocean of riches of the
> India Office Records and manuscripts. Blair was exceedingly kind and
> supportive, offering probing questions and useful suggestions which
> brought me back to a more or less even keel. We await a full obituary
> notice and hope to have one to post on H-ASIA in the near future. In the
> interim I will just note a few points on Blair Kling's career.
>
> Blair studied under the late Holden Furber at the University of
> Pennsylvania completing a PhD degree with his dissertation: "The Bengal
> indigo disturbances,1859-1862: a study in the origins of political
> activity in modern Bengal. (Philadelphia, 1960)
>
> Blair joined the faculty of the History Department at the University of
> Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1962 and taught there for his academic
> career. He retired in 2000. His research generally focussed upon Bengal
> with his long-term interests in the history of entreprenuerial activity
> and economic development during the 19th century.
>
> He published his first book in 1966:
> _The blue mutiny; the indigo disturbances in Bengal, 1859-1862_,
> by Blair B. Kling.
> Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [1966]
> LC Card Number: 64024507
>
> This seminal study was published in a Bengali language translation in
> 1995:
> _Nila vidroha: Bamlara nila andolana 1859-1862_ by Blair B. Kling,
> Farahada Khana and Zulafikara Ali
> Dhaka: International Centre for Bengal Studies, 1995
> ISBN: 9848127054, 9789848127056
>
> Subsequently he worked on the career and impact of Dwarkanath Tagore
> and the beginnings of Indian business enterprise:
>
> _Partner in empire : Dwarkanath Tagore and the age of enterprise in
> eastern India_ by Blair B. Kling.
> Berkeley : University of California Press, c1976.
> ISBN: 0520029275
>
> In the course of his work he brought back extensive microfilm
> materials, notably papers of the Bengal Coal Co. letters to Carr, Tagore &
> Co., Calcutta: 1840, 1842-1845, which are housed at the UIUC Library.
>
> Blair subsequently edited with Michael Pearson an important collection
> of essays:
> _The Age of partnership: Europeans in Asia before dominion_
> Edited by Blair B. Kling and M. N. Pearson.
> Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979
> ISBN: 0824804953
>
> His connection to the Tagore family was also revealed when he edited
> a special publication for a festival on Rabindranath Tagore:
>
> _Rabindranath Tagore (Thakur) for the Twenty First Century_
> by Blair B Kling
> Urbana, Ill: Tagore Center, 1992
> ISBN: 0932884504 9780932884503
>
> Among Blair's essays and articles:
>
> "The Origin of the Managing Agency System in India" _Journal of Asian
> Studies_ 26:1 (November, 1966) 37-47
>
> "Holden Furber at work" in Blair B. King, Blair B.and Michael N. Pearson,
> eds. _The Age of partnership: Europeans in Asia before dominion_.
> Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979. 237-247
>
> "The Tatas and the Tagores" in Tony K. Stewart, ed. _Shaping Bengali
> worlds, public and private_
> East Lansing: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University, 1989..
> (South Asia series: occasional paper, 37.) 168-172
>
> "Paternalism in Indian labor: the Tata Iron and Steel Company of
> Jamshedpur", _International Labor and Working-Class History_ (New York)
> no.53 (Spr 1998) 69-87
>
> "Economic foundations of the Bengal renaissance" in Rachel Van M. Baumer,
> ed, _Aspects of Bengali History and Society_ Honolulu, University Press of
> Hawaii, 1975. 26-42
>
> contributed a "contextual essay" to
> _Kim : authoritative text, backgrounds, criticism_
> by Rudyard Kipling and Zohreh T Sullivan
> New York: Norton, 2002.
>
> "Hollywood's India: The Meaning of RKO's Gunga Din"
> (with Frederic Cople Jaher)
> _Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television
> Studies_, 38, no. 2 (2008): 33-44
>
> Frank
>
> Frank F. Conlon
> Professor Emeritus of History, South Asian
> Studies & Comparative Religion
> University of Washington
> Seattle, WA 98195-3560 USA
> Co-editor, H-ASIA
> Managing Director, Bibliography of Asian Studies Online
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