Dr Gulfishan Khan ‘The Indo-Persian elite and the Formation of Orientalist Tradition’

Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre 14 Stephenson Way, London, United Kingdom

  The Indo-Persian educated became the pioneers of what is termed “Invisible Occidentalism”, also called “Orientalism in reverse,” as they explored vistas of knowledge concerning the West. The cultural interaction with the agents of the new regime fostered new modes of thought and reshaped the mental landscape and sensibilities of the traditional intelligentsia. Some of them…

Dr. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones MBE (Independent Scholar) – ‘My Dear Schomberg’: Letters from Sir Aurel Stein

Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre 14 Stephenson Way, London, United Kingdom

Sir Aurel Stein’s life and work has been extensively examined in books and biographies.  He was a prolific letter writer but surprisingly none of his biographers have commented on the correspondence with Colonel Reginald Schomberg during the last decade of his life.  The two men met each other in Oxford and later at the British…

Dr. Mehreen Chida-Razvi (SOAS) – The Mughal Madonna: Representations of the Virgin in Jahangiri-era Architecture

Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre 14 Stephenson Way, London, United Kingdom

The Mughal Madonna: Representations of the Virgin in Jahangiri-era Architecture Dr Mehreen Chida-Razvi (Research Associate, Department of History of Art & Archaeology, SOAS) From the arrival of Jesuit missionaries to the court of the Mughal emperor, Akbar (r.1556-1605), Christian imagery was depicted by Mughal artists in works on paper. Both Akbar and his son, Prince…

Edward Weech Lecture: Systems of Religion and Morality in the Collections of the Royal Asiatic Society

Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Marston Road, Oxford, United Kingdom

  The Royal Asiatic Society was founded in 1823, inspired by the model of Sir William Jones’s Asiatic Society of Bengal.  From its earliest days, one of the chief ways the Society sought to promote research and interest into the histories and cultures of Asia was by establishing and making available its historic collection of…

Professor Anna Contadini (SOAS) – The Pisa Griffin and the Mari-Cha Lion: Metalwork, Art, and Technology in the Medieval Islamicate Mediterranean

Anna Contadini is Professor of the History of Islamic Art and Head of the School of Arts at SOAS, University of London. She is also the Director of the “Griffin and Lion Project”. Her areas of interest are Arabic and Persian illustrated manuscripts, material culture of the Islamic world, and the artistic and cultural connections…

***NB DATE CHANGE*** Unlocking the Door: Writing from Georgia – With talks by Professor Donald Rayfield (Queen Mary), Dr. Gillian Evison (Bodleian Library) and Ms. Lia Chokoshvili (Oxford University)

Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre 14 Stephenson Way, London, United Kingdom

*** NB - the date of this event has been moved and will take place on Tuesday the 6th of November; NOT the 5th of November as previously advertised and printed in the Lecture Programme ***   Wardrop Inheritance: a Journey through translation from Georgian The Embassy of Georgia to the United Kingdom and the…

Omar Khan (Author) – Book Launch: Paper Jewels: Postcards from the Raj

Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre 14 Stephenson Way, London, United Kingdom

Paper Jewels Postcards from the Raj by Omar Khan, a 518 Vintage Postcard Tour of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, is co-published by Mapin Publishing and the Alkazi Collection of Photography (August 2018). Postcards were to people in 1900 what the Internet was to the world in 2000. Postcards were the world’s first mass transfusion of…

Dr. Christoph Baumer (Author) – The History of Central Asia: The Age of Decline and Revival

Brunei Gallery, SOAS Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, England, United Kingdom

*** N.B. This is a joint event with the RSAA and will take place at the Brunei Gallery at SOAS *** Join us for the launch of Dr. Christoph Baumer's The History of Central Asia: The Age of Decline and Revival. For more than a hundred years, Central Asia was the heartland of the mightiest…