BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Royal Asiatic Society - ECPv6.17.4//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Royal Asiatic Society
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://royalasiaticsociety.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Royal Asiatic Society
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/London
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20250330T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20251026T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20260329T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20261025T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20270328T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20271031T010000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20261022T183000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20261022T200000
DTSTAMP:20261002T110911Z
CREATED:20260825T133044Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261002T110911Z
UID:25485-1792693800-1792699200@royalasiaticsociety.org
SUMMARY:Mughals in Bombay? Border-making and itinerant belonging in a colonial port city
DESCRIPTION:This lecture is part of the Royal Asiatic Society’s Maritime Asia Series \nAbout the Talk\nThis is a talk about Persianate Bombay\, a city that is not commonly seen as a part of the Persianate world or era\, or as a border city. I argue that Bombay was both- Persianate and a border city- in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As larger numbers of migrants arrived from the ports of the Persian Gulf following the steam revolution of the nineteenth century\, Bombay’s administrators sought to criminalise itinerancy and reify the borders of the Raj by sorting “desirables” from “undesirables”. Amidst these state processes of border-making and fixing people in space through property and taxation\, Persian itinerants built diverse professions and overlapping orders of social belonging as Mughals (Shias) and Iranis (Zoroastrians)\, tied by shared norms of Persianate adab. As the city transitioned from being an ocean-facing port city to a nation-facing mill city\, so did the norms of belonging and the notions of space embedded in its neighbourhoods. \nAbout the Speaker\nTania Bhattacharyya is Assistant Professor of the History of Capitalism at the University of Warwick. She is a historian of migration\, urbanity and labour in the British Empire and specializes in the study of South Asia and the Indian Ocean. Her book manuscript Ocean Bombay: Space\, itinerancy and community in a colonial port city\, 1839-1945 is currently under review with Columbia University Press. It tells the story of colonial Bombay as it transitioned from an ocean-facing port city to a nation-facing mill city by following itinerants who traversed the routes between Zanzibar\, Aden\, Bushire and Bombay and studying the communities and neighbourhoods that formed at the interstices of these networks in Bombay. \n  \nFree and open to all. \nTo join over Zoom\, please register here.
URL:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/lectures-event/mughals-in-bombay-border-making-and-itinerant-belonging-in-an-imperial-port-city/
LOCATION:Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre\, 14 Stephenson Way\, London\, NW1 2HD\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:RAS Lectures & Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Mughal-Masjid-1.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20261029T183000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20261029T200000
DTSTAMP:20260916T085242Z
CREATED:20260916T085242Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260916T085242Z
UID:25449-1793298600-1793304000@royalasiaticsociety.org
SUMMARY:Book Launch: The Art of Drinking Chocolate: Coconut Cups and Other Marvels from the New World
DESCRIPTION:About The Book\nJoin us for the launch of the new book The Art of Drinking Chocolate: Coconut Cups and Other Marvels from the New World\, published by Oxbow Books in September. This richly illustrated journey into the history of chocolate explores a fascinating and largely forgotten aspect of the ritual of drinking it: the use of coconuts and gourds\, often mounted in silver\, as luxurious drinking vessels. This tradition emerged in the Americas in the sixteenth century and endured for more than four centuries\, bringing together Indigenous practices\, Asian materials\, European craftsmanship and changing ideas about luxury and consumption. \nThe presentation will also uncover the remarkable cultural history of the coconut\, a fruit prized for its extraordinary versatility\, providing water and food as well as fibre for rope\, fuel and natural vessels for drinking. Despite its strong association with the Caribbean today\, the coconut was introduced to parts of the Americas from the Philippines in the sixteenth century\, becoming part of a remarkable story of trans-Pacific exchange. We will discover the extraordinary beliefs and stories of coconuts\, and their magical properties. Such ideas shaped the ways in which coconut-shell chocolate cups were understood\, used and valued. Some were believed to protect their owners against poison or to possess prophylactic and magical powers. \nThe event will surely deliver lively exploration of the intersections between food history\, material culture\, global trade\, ritual and belief at the dawn of the early modern “Age of Wonders”. Following these remarkable objects across oceans and cultures reveals complex histories of exchange between Asia\, the Americas and Europe\, while illuminating changing attitudes towards luxury\, consumption\, magic and the natural world.
URL:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/lectures-event/book-launch-the-art-of-drinking-chocolate-coconut-cups-and-other-marvels-from-the-new-world/
CATEGORIES:Book Launch,RAS Lectures & Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/COVER-300DPI-copy.png
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR