Highlander Lectures

The annual Highland Fellowship Lectures, formerly known as the Hutton Lectures, were established in 2013 by the founders of the Highland Institute, with the stated mission: 

To foster and propagate the study of culture and society, aiming to deepen scholarly understanding and enhance the well-being of communities within the broader Eastern Himalayan region.

Today, the lectures are organized and sponsored by the Highland Fellowship and held annually at the Highland Institute, usually in the month of December. The Fellowship invites distinguished thinkers of local, national, and international renown to deliver public lectures, which when possible are published open access by Highlander Press. 

The lectures are often augmented by a wider symposium featuring local, national, and international postgraduate students, doctoral candidates, and early career researchers, all presenting their ongoing research. 

Co-sponsors have included the Department of Art and Culture, Government of Nagaland; the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge University, UK; the Centre for Karbi Studies, Karbi Anglong; the Ethnological Museum of Berlin; the University of Tübingen, Germany; the University of Oxford, UK; the Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Edinburgh; the North East Forum and Centre for Community Knowledge at Ambedkar University Delhi; the Google Cultural Institute; the UiT The Arctic University of Norway; and the British Academy. 

Hutton Lectures 2015

The third annual 2015 Hutton Lectures was held on the 5th of December, 2015 at De Oriental Grand Hotel in Kohima, with the title: ‘Handshakes with History‘, drawing on the keynote lecture’s title. The day-long symposium had two sessions: Morning…

Hutton Lectures 2014

The 2014 Hutton Lectures were held on the 3rd and 4th of December beginning at 8AM at The Heritage (Old D.C. Bungalow), Kohima; a historical space that provides a setting appropriate for the projected size of the audience as and…

Hutton Lectures 2013

The Hutton Lectures, a program of The Highland Institute aims to enable distinguished international scholars to gather, debate and contribute to the enhancement of cultural studies in and among the indigenous peoples of the Eastern Himalayan region. For the inaugural…