What’s On

The Society runs an active programme of public lectures, seminars, book launches and other events throughout the year on a range of subjects relating to Asia.

These events are usually held at the Society’s Lecture Hall in London and each is accompanied by a small reception. Unless otherwise specified, our events are open to all members of the public and no booking is required. There is no charge for our regular lectures and, where possible, events are streamed live over Zoom. If you would like to attend any of these events online, please register at the link provided on the event page or contact Evelyn Dodds by email: emd@royalasiaticsociety.org. Please note the number of online attendees is limited so early registration is advised.

Our upcoming events are listed below.

2026-27 Maritime Asia Lecture Series

We are delighted to be launching a series of public lectures over 2026–27 on Maritime Asia in collaboration with the Courtauld Institute of Art. See the tentative programme here. Details of further lectures will be added as they become available.

All
Book Launch
Lecture
Maritime Asia

Mughals in Bombay? Border-making and itinerant belonging in a colonial port city

22 October (Thursday)

Book Launch: The Art of Drinking Chocolate: Coconut Cups and Other Marvels from the New World

29 October (Thursday)

CITY OF VICTORY: HAMPI VIJAYANAGARA Illustrated Talk by Dr George Michell

3 November (Tuesday)

The Deccani Sultanates

5 November (Thursday)

Early Modern Sensory Exchanges

19 November (Thursday)

Indians in the Ocean: Promises of Slaves and Pirates, 1000-1500 CE

15 December (Tuesday)

Past Events

Recordings of most lectures and events are uploaded to our YouTube channel. If you missed one of our events, or would like to revisit the content from a past event, you could view these recordings on our channel. Our two most recent recordings can be viewed below.

Part of the Aurel Stein Archives and Collections Conference. In the Stein and Pelliot collections from Cave 17 there are over 400 Chinese manuscripts in the booklet (codex) format, as counted by Jean-Pierre Drege. In my own survey of Tibetan booklets in both collection I identified only 25 in total. Given that the Dunhuang collections as a whole contain roughly the same amount of manuscripts in Tibetan as Chinese, we can say that the booklet was only used for a very small minority of Tibetan manuscripts, with the loose-leaf pothi format being much more popular. However, this small sample of Tibetan booklets still has much to tell us. In this talk I look at the evidence of wear and tear in these booklets and what it can tell us about how they were used. Many contain texts that probably had a magical and/or funerary purpose, and this kind of use might be reflected in the stains and burns that are found in so many of them.

Sam van Schaik - Stains and burns

Petroglyphs are since the Upper Palaeolithic one of the oldest types of human visual expression. They not only reflect societal and economic adaptations to climate and environmental changes but also encapsulate the worldviews, myths and rituals that were prevalent at the time. As climate dramatically changed since the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene Climatic Optimum and again to a renewed climatic cooling and gradual desiccation, fauna, flora and humans had to adapt. These changes are recorded in petroglyphs. Regarding pre-literate societies, they represent, together with archaeology, one of the most informative sources to gain insights in bygone cultures. The makers of petroglyphs were masters of abstraction, using the simplest of tools to capture the essence of a wide variety of animals, humans and objects, and to depict complex scenes. In this sense, petroglyphs are pieces of ancient art. In spite of their great antiquity, petroglyphs regained in the last decades in topicality as contemporary artists find in them inspiration and a means to gain access to their own cultural heritage.The illustrated lecture is related to Christoph Baumer’s and Therese Weber’s recent book Rock Art and its Legacy in Myth and Art (Bloomsbury) which is the result of thirty years of petroglyph research in Central Asia, Scandinavia, Arabia and the Sahara.

Christoph Baumer and Therese Weber: Rock Art and its Legacy in Myth and Art

Support Us

The Society is an independent charity and relies on the generosity of its members and donors to continue its work. Your support will enable us to organise more events for anyone with an interest in Asia. If you enjoy our events, please consider supporting us by making a donation.

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