Fall Slow Seminar: The Range of the River by Iftekhar Iqbal

UCSC’s Center for Southeast Asian Coastal Interactions (SEACoast) and the Center for South Asian Studies invite you to join us for a Slow Seminar to discuss Iftekhar Iqbal’s The Range of the River: Asia’s Great River Systems and the Making of a Transregional World on Monday, November 16, 2026 from 3:30-5:00pm PST in Room 2010, Humanities 1.

Spanning nearly four million square kilometers across eastern South Asia, mainland Southeast Asia, and southern China, the Tibetan river system connects some of Asia’s major waterways, including the Brahmaputra, Mekong, and Yangtze. In The Range of the River, Iqbal traces the intertwined histories of these rivers and the human and other-than-human forces that have shaped them. The book considers rivers not only as sites of imperial power, territorial contestation, and economic activity, but also as dynamic forces and shared commons that have facilitated movement, exchange, commerce, and cultural encounters across political and geographic boundaries.

Professor Anna Tsing (UCSC Anthropology) will facilitate our Slow Seminar to focus on three river systems explored in Iqbal’s book: the Brahmaputra, Mekong, and Yangtze. Three scholars including Sanjay Barbora (UCSC Sociology), David Biggs (UCR History), and Ben Read (UCSC Politics) will offer brief reflections on one river each, providing distinct disciplinary and regional perspectives before the discussion opens to a broader collective conversation.

Please register for the Slow Seminar by filling out this Google Form. Registered guests will receive a PDF copy of The Range of the River via email.

This is a Hybrid event. Participants may join in-person at UCSC or by Zoom. The Zoom link will be sent out to registered participants at least 1 hour before the event.

Registration will close at midnight on November 15, 2026.

New to Slow Seminars? Check out SEACoast’s definition here.