Events, Research Visit and Special Issue of JRAS

It’s been a lively and rewarding week at the Society, with two events and an international visit bringing scholars and friends together. Below is a recap on what we’ve been through this week, plus news about our Journal:

James J. Busuttil Prize Lecture by Dr Lydia Walker

On Wednesday, 17 June, we’re delighted to welcome Dr Lydia Walker of The Ohio State University to deliver the James J. Busuttil Prize Lecture. The prize is is awarded for the publication of a book on human rights in English. Dr Walker’s award-winning book States-in-Waiting: A Counternarrative of Global Decolonization, published by the Cambridge University Press in 2024, offers a compelling study of nationalist movements that fell outside the formal decolonisation framework of the mid-20th century. In her lecture, Dr Walker revisited the unresolved questions raised in the book’s conclusion, exploring alternative forms of political belonging and the temporalities of the international order.

We congratulate Dr Walker on her achievement and thank all who joined us! You can now watch a recording of the lecture on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctTe-8s7i9A

More information about the James J. Busuttil Medal and Prize for Human Rights can be found here.

Michael Dillon’s Book Launch

On Thursday, 18 June, we celebrated the launch of Michael Dillon’s latest publication on Shanghai – a sweeping account of the city’s transformation from a small fishing village into a global financial and cultural centre. For the occasion, Dillon was joined in conversation by Kerry Brown, Professor of Chinese Studies at King’s College London, whose own work The Great Reversal (Yale University Press, 2024) traces the vivid history of Sino‑British encounters across the centuries. Their dialogue offered rich insights into the making of modern China, viewed through both local and transnational lenses. A recording of the event will be made available on our YouTube shortly, so please stay tuned!

Visit from a Kazakh Research Delegation

Earlier in the week, we’re pleased to host a visit from a research delegation from Kazakhstan, visiting Europe on a scholarly tour. Representing the R. B. Suleimenov Institute of Oriental Studies under the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Kazakhstan, the delegation met our team and discussed their current project on the study of the early and medieval history and culture of the Turkic world. In return, we put out a small display of  selected items from our collections, including our illustrated copy of Külliyat‑ı Ali Şir Nevai (Turkish 47) – the only illustrated volume in our Ottoman manuscript collection – along with several other manuscripts of interest.

It’s a pleasure to welcome the delegation and to establish new professional connections with research institutes in Central Asia. Here is a photograph showing Director of the Institute Professor Duken Massimkhanuly presenting a gift to our Director Alison Ohta:

New Special Issue of JRAS

The April issue of our Journal is now available to view in full on Cambridge Core. This is a special issue focusing on South Asian courtesans from the 18th to 20th centuries, bringing together essays that illuminate their roles as performers, cultural intermediaries and travellers across local, regional and transnational contexts – a very interesting issue dedicated to a field which is currently understudied. Just to give you a sense of the vibrancy of these courtesan performances, here is an image of an artwork from the British Library depicting a courtesan performance scene at Colonel James Skinner’s home in 1838:

6 out of 9 articles in this issue are available via Open Access, so it’s free for anyone to read. Fellows of the Society enjoy free online access to full content of our Journal. To access JRAS online please visit https://royalasiaticsociety.org/journal/