Royal Asiatic Society

Publications Committee
2025-11-06 15:30 - 16:30 (Europe/London)

Prof. Peter Clift - Societal Development in Asia and its links to Evolving Climate and Rivers
2025-10-30 18:30 - 20:30 | Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom
The strength of the Asian monsoon has varied over timescales spanning millions to thousands of years and even decades. Climate records stored in lakes, caves and marine sediments now allow its reconstruction with unprecedented precision. Since around 10,000 years ago changes in monsoon intensity have impacted the development and then demise of civilisations across Asia especially those located on the edge of the monsoon system. The Indus Valley Civilization is a good example of a culture that developed when the monsoon was stronger, then responded to the slowly drying climate before eventually dissipating, leading to the abandonment of their cities. It is largely through agriculture that the monsoon control is recognised. Other examples of societal crises brought on by climate change include Angkor Wat but also the Ming and Song dynasties in China. Strong monsoons appear to have allowed the Mongol conquest of Eurasia in the 13th century. Future warming of the climate is expected to result in stronger monsoons but also more stormy conditions which are also not connected to productive agriculture. Some areas like northern China are predicted to become drier. The monsoons furthermore fuel the large rivers of Asia which have been critical to the development of major urban centres across the continent in the historical and prehistorical past. Climate changes also affecting the track of typhoons in the Western Pacific with fewer going into the South China Sea and towards Vietnam and more moving to the north-east towards central China and Japan. The future prosperity of Asia is also threatened by rising sea levels, particularly in southeast Asia and eastern China. Understanding how people adjusted to claim a change in the historical and archaeological past is important for developing effective strategies for dealing with current and future changes.
Peter Clift has been a professor in the Department of Earth sciences at University College London since 2023. He previously worked at a variety of institutes in the US and the UK and has been a sabbatical or visiting researcher in India and China. He has been a visiting professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, South China Sea Institute for Oceanology for 20 years. Clift did his BA at the University of Oxford and a PhD at the University of Edinburgh. He is most well known for his work on the origin and development of the Asian monsoon and has used sediments preserved in the seas around Asia to look at the evolution of landscape with the impact of climate change and human settlement being of particular focus. He has a special interest in the Indus Valley Civilisation and the interactions of the Indus river and Thar Desert system with the human history of South Asia. Clift is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union as well as the Geological Society of America and in 2023 he was awarded the Lyell medal by the Geological Society of London. In 2024 he was Jubilee Chair Professor at the Indian Academy of Sciences and this year holds a Chinese Academy of Science President’s International Fellowship.

Free and open to all at 14 Stephenson Way, NW1 2HD
To join us online email: mb@royalasiaticsociety.org

Prof Scott Redford - The Medieval Period: Bilkent University Excavations at Kinet Höyük, Hatay, Turkey
2025-10-28 18:30 - 20:30 | Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom
This study, focusing on the Rum Seljuk dynasty in thirteenth-century Anatolia, combines local history, geography, art history, and archaeology to examine instances of an only partially understood garden tradition in one corner of the medieval Mediterranean. Gardens, and their architecture, have been neglected, not only because of the paucity of remains, the architecture they inspired was not monumental and relied strongly on a sense of place, and a sensitivity to the landscape. This book attempts to recover a measure of that sense and that landscape, as well as the activities that endowed them with meaning for those that enjoyed them.

Free and open to all at 14 Stephenson Way, NW1 2HD
To join us online email: mb@royalasiaticsociety.org

Jochen Sokoly: Textiles of the Early Islamic Caliphates
2025-10-27 18:30 - 20:30
A collection of precious inscribed or decorated Islamic textiles produced before the thirteenth century CE, many published here for the first time.
The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait, includes a remarkable array of textiles from the Islamic world, ranging widely in form, function, and place of origin. Textiles of the Early Islamic Caliphates focuses on a group of tiraz and tiraz-style textiles produced before the thirteenth century CE, mainly in the central Islamic lands.
Tiraz textiles—the word tiraz can be traced back to the Persian word for “embroidery”—were highly valued in the early Islamic world. Inscribed with sacred invocations and the name of the ruling caliph, together with information relating to their year of manufacture, these textiles provide an invaluable window into the political, administrative, and religious life of early Islam, as well as various traditions of textile production. The large majority of the surviving fragments of tiraz textiles, which were originally given as robes of honor to courtiers and ambassadors, have been found in Egyptian tombs: most of the textiles examined in this book once belonged to burial outfits from the diverse religious communities in Egypt during the early Islamic period.
Featuring more than 180 textiles from The al-Sabah Collection, some never published before, this book provides authoritative analysis not only of the textiles themselves, but also of the historical and cultural context in which they were produced. With hundreds of illustrations, including specially commissioned macrophotography, Textiles of the Early Islamic Caliphates is a landmark publication that will appeal to scholars and general readers alike.
Jochen Sokoly is associate professor of art history of the Islamic world at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar. He has published on early Islamic inscribed textiles, served as cochair of the Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium, and curated exhibitions on contemporary Middle Eastern art.

Free and open to all at 14 Stephenson Way, NW1 2HD
To join us online email: mb@royalasiaticsociety.org

Prof. Usha Vijailakshmi - Stewards of Heritage: The Asiatic Society of Mumbai’s Legacy and Contemporary Role
2025-10-23 18:30 - 20:30 | Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom
Founded in 1804 by James Mackintosh, the Asiatic Society of Mumbai was envisioned as both a research body and a library, dedicated to advancing knowledge of the East in fields ranging from Sanskrit studies and history to geology, botany, and medicine. At a time when Bombay lacked institutions of higher learning, the Society became a hub of intellectual exchange, sustained by British administrators, Indian scholars, and local patrons. Over two centuries, it has amassed a vast collection of manuscripts, coins, inscriptions, and rare books, while also shaping public intellectual life through lectures and publications.
Yet today, the Society faces pressing challenges: financial constraints, administrative pressures, and the delicate balance of autonomy with state obligations. Despite these hurdles, it continues to catalogue, conserve, and engage the public, striving to uphold its relevance in a rapidly changing academic and cultural landscape. This talk examines the Society’s enduring significance and the formidable challenges it faces in sustaining its legacy.

Free and open to all at 14 Stephenson Way, NW1 2HD
To join us online email: mb@royalasiaticsociety.org

Monograph Board
2025-10-23 16:30 - 17:30

Dr Liz Driver - Elphinstone, Malcolm and the Wellesleys: An Introduction to Central India in the Early 19th Century
2025-10-22 18:30 - 20:30 | Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom
The first decades of the 19th century have been described as the “golden age of English rule” “a brief but glorious interregnum between eighteenth century corruption and nineteenth century complacency”. This was the age of Elphinstone and Malcolm in Central India and Bombay, Tod in Rajputana and Munro in Madras. All were Scots, with the impressive ability to combine military, political and diplomatic roles with literary and linguistic skills. All worked hard to restore order and prosperity in the aftermath of the Anglo-Maratha and Pindari wars and believed that there should not be excessive interference by the now paramount power in the running of the native states and in their judicial systems. They were opposed to colonisation and to attempts to convert to Christianity and, above all, believed that Indians should be educated to govern their own country when the English left, as they should and inevitably would. Their views on the need for education and the role of the state in funding it were at least a decade ahead of the government at home, where it was only just being recognised that the state had a duty to see that its citizens could read and write.

Inevitably, the accusation of orientalism has been made against them and it is argued that their interpretation of Indian culture and history was distorted by their Scottish enlightenment “cultural luggage”. This talk looks at the achievements–and failures-of Elphinstone and Malcolm in Central India following the expansion of East India Company territory under Governor-General Richard Wellesley and the military successes of his brother Arthur, the future Duke of Wellington. It examines the characters of the men and the influence that had on the way they fulfilled their various roles, including, in both cases, that of Governor of Bombay.

Free and open to all at 14 Stephenson Way, NW1 2HD
To join us online email: mb@royalasiaticsociety.org

(Japan Series) Rosina Buckland and Alexander Owen - TBC: Conservation and installation project of a Japanese bodhisattva
2025-10-21 18:00 - 20:00 | The Courtauld, Vernon Square, Penton Rise, London, WC1X 9EW, United Kingdom
Further details TBC

Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC)
64 The Close
Norwich NR1 4DH
sisjac@sainsbury-institute.org

The Courtauld Institute of Art
Vernon Square
Penton Rise
London WC1X 9EW
Sujatha.Meegama@courtauld.ac.uk

(Japan Series) Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere - The Art of Manga
2025-10-16 18:00 - 19:00 | SISJAC (Online), The Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, Norwich, NR1 4DH, United Kingdom
Register here
Online lecture via Zoom.
50 min lecture followed by Q&A.
Free and open to all, booking essential.
To check your time zone conversion if you are joining from outside the UK, click here.
If you have limited access to the internet but would still like to view the lecture, please email sisjac@sainsbury-institute.org or call us on +44 (0) 1603 597507 to book to attend our livestream from 64 The Close.
This lecture forms part of the Japan Studies: Past, Present and Future series in collaborations with the Royal Asiatic Society, and the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Speaker
Professor Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere (Research Director, Sainsbury Institute)
About the Talk
International enthusiasm for manga and anime is at an all-time high. Manga has finally established itself as part of the mainstream culture in the United States, with sales of print manga titles in the U.S. increasing 27 times faster than those in the conventional book industry in the USA. In Europe, manga has long been recognised as a powerful form of visual graphic expression. Britain, however, has traditionally been a bit slower in its embrace of manga. Bucking this trend in 2019, the British Museum held one of the most ambitious exhibitions on manga, focusing on its history, range, and impact. Featuring over 50 artists from past to present, the Citi Manga exhibition attempted to contextualise and as well as capture the power of manga. Happily, the exhibition was a confirmed success with record visitor numbers, attracting new diverse audiences to the museum.
Six years later, the de Young Museum, part of the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco in the United States is currently hosting a very different manga exhibition featuring the art of manga drawings (genga) highlighting 10 manga artists (mangaka). With a total of 689 individual works on display, this exhibition is one of the most ambitious one to showcase this important art form. Working with the artists, multiple Japanese publishers, and various stakeholders to create this exhibition was instructive. This lecture will introduce the Art of Manga and explore the lessons learned and possibilities for the future.
About the Speaker
Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, Ph.D., is the founding Director and currently the Research Director of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures and Professor of Japanese Art and Culture at the University of East Anglia, Norwich UK. She wrote Vessels of Influence: China and the Birth of Porcelain in Medieval and Modern Japan with Bloomsbury Academic in 2012 and translated Professor Tsuji Nobuo’s A History of Art in Japan with Tokyo University Press in 2018, re-issued by Columbia University Press in 2020, among numerous other publications. She was the lead curator for the Crafting Beauty in Modern Japan exhibition in 2007 featuring Moriguchi Kunihiko and his father’s yuzen kimono, and the Citi Exhibition Manga マンガ in 2019, both held at the British Museum where she was curator from 2008-2019. She is currently curator of a large art of manga exhibition, The Art of Manga, on display at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, from 27 September 2025 to 25 January 2026. She was made the Tottori Prefecture furusato ambassador in 2021.

Image: ©︎ Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan; ©︎ PAPIER/Jirō Taniguchi, Masayuki Qusumi, FUSOSHA; ©︎ Mari Yamazaki, Tori Miki/Shinchosha; ©︎ Hirohiko Araki & LUCKY LAND COMMUNICATIONS/Shueisha; ©︎ Kazumi Yamashita/KODANSHA LTD.; ©︎ Fujio Akatsuka; ©︎ Gengoroh Tagame/Futabasha Publishers Ltd.; ©︎ Fumi Yoshinaga/HAKUSENSHA, Inc.; “Hinemosu notari nikki” ©︎ Tetsuya Chiba/Big Comic (Shogakukan); ©︎ Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha

Prof Tirthankar Roy - Building a state in late-18th century India: Revisiting the Permanent Settlement debate
2025-10-09 18:30 - 20:30 | Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom
“The principle on which [Akbar] secured his conquest was [to show regard] to the right of the Zemindars, the ancient proprietors of the soil,” said Philip Francis in 1777. Disagreeing radically, his rival and critic Warren Hastings said that “much the greatest part of the Zemindars… are incapable of judging or acting for themselves, being either minors, or men of weak understandings, or absolute idiots.”
Two statesmen in charge of building a state in Bengal made these conflicting comments about the zamindar, a magnate in the countryside. Their debate reveals the complicated nature of the statebuilding project in Bengal at that time, with limited trust in indigenous institutions and intermediaries and yet limited power to supersede these. The talk will discuss this debate and suggest how we should read institutional reforms in early-colonial India.

Free and open to all at 14 Stephenson Way, NW1 2HD
To join us online email: mb@royalasiaticsociety.org

Council Meeting
2025-10-09 16:30 - 17:30

Journal Editorial Board
2025-10-09 15:30 - 16:30

Alexandra Buhler - Relations between Zoroastrians in India and Iran: the role of the British and the impact of the ‘Great Game’
2025-09-25 18:30 - 20:30 | Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom
This talk will draw on the research Alexandra Buhler conducted for her recent book, Zoroastrianism in India and Iran: Persians, Parsis and the Flowering of Political Identity, which examines the cultural, religious, and political ties between the Zoroastrian communities of Iran and India during the late Qajar and early Pahlavi periods. In particular, she will focus on the role played by the British in encouraging strong relations between the two Zoroastrian communities and on the geo- political factors that motivated them to do so.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the rivalry between Britain and Russia over Iran led the British to attempt to utilise their positive relations with the Parsis, Zoroastrians in India, to establish strategic ties with Zoroastrians in Iran. Additionally, the British supported efforts being made by Parsis to reconnect with their co- religionists and with their ancient homeland.
Diplomatic relations between Britain and Russia underwent a significant development with the signing of the Anglo-Russian Convention in August 1907. She will assess the extent to which the tripartite relations between the British, Zoroastrians in Iran, and Parsis were affected by the convention in the following months and years.

Finance and Investments
2025-09-25 17:00 - 18:00

Events and House
2025-09-25 16:00 - 17:00

Library Committee
2025-09-25 15:00 - 16:00

(Japan Series) Benedetta Lomi - The Lives and Afterlives of Buddhist Icons: Deactivation and Reactivation Rituals in Medieval Japan
2025-09-25 08:00 - 17:00 | The Courtauld, Vernon Square, Penton Rise, London, WC1X 9EW, United Kingdom
Further information not yet available. Check soon for updates!

Nicolas Revire - Charting Dvāravatī: The Making of an Early Buddhist Polity in Central Thailand
2025-09-18 18:30 - 20:30 | Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom
This lecture explores the intellectual foundations of Dvāravatī studies and the making of an early Buddhist polity in central Thailand during the mid-to-late first millennium CE. It highlights the pivotal roles of Prince Damrong Rajanubhab (1862–1943) and Professor George Cœdès (1886–1969), whose historical and epigraphic work shaped modern understandings of Dvāravatī as a Theravāda Buddhist culture with Old Mon, Sanskrit, and Pali influences. Beginning with the 19th-century rediscovery of sites like Nakhon Pathom, the talk traces how their scholarship framed Dvāravatī in both historical, and cultural terms. It also considers the legacy of their work in the writings of later scholars and Orientalists such as Horace Geoffrey Quaritch Wales (1900–1981), Pierre Dupont (1908–1955), Jean Boisselier (1912–1996), or Piriya Krairiksh (b. 1942), whose contributions continue to shape debates on early Southeast Asian religion, language, and state formation.
Born in France, Nicolas Revire holds a doctoral degree from Paris, specializing in Hindu-Buddhist art of early Southeast Asia, particularly pre-modern Thailand. As a senior research fellow at the Art Institute of Chicago, he brings expertise from two decades of teaching and research in Bangkok. The speaker has published extensively on the subject and is currently the managing editor of the Journal of the Siam Society.

Japan Series: Professor Jennifer Coates - Studying Japan from the UK: New Challenges and Historical Precedents
2025-09-09 18:30 - 20:30 | Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom
This illustrated talk reflects on the past, present and future of Japanese Studies in the UK; the antecedents of the field, its strengths and challenges, and its place in our fast-changing globalised world. As many countries around the world turn inwards to prioritise national concerns and domestic politics, Japan remains an object of fascination for students, researchers, and the general public. From the mystical ‘Japan’ located just west of Laputa in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) to the ‘Japan’ of geisha in rickshaws captured by the Lumière brothers’ cameramen (1897), and from the opponent of World War II to the exciting exoticism of ‘Japan’ as holiday destination, our engagement with ideas about ‘Japan’ has shaped not only the UK understanding of Japan, but also the UK itself. Connecting the history of the study of Japan to contemporary research on its impact on the UK, this talk demonstrates the value of learning about Japan.

About the Speaker
Jennifer Coates is Professor of Japanese Studies at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield and Honorary Secretary of the British Association of Japanese Studies. Her books include Making Icons: Repetition and the Female Image in Japanese Cinema, 1945-1964 (2016), Film Viewing in Postwar Japan, 1945-1968: An Ethnographic Study (2022), and co-edited volumes War Memory and East Asian Conflicts, 1930–1945, Japanese Visual Media: Politicizing the Screen and The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture.

Book Launch: The Medieval Mediterranean between Islam and Christianity (With co-editor Sami De Giosa, introduced by Dr Mariam Rosser-Owen)
2025-08-04 18:30 - 20:00 | Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom

(Joint event) Japanese architectural history in action: reconstruction, conservation, restoration
2025-07-11 14:00 - 17:30 | Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom
To join this event online please email Matty at mb@royalasiaticsociety.org

The Futures of Travel Editing - Hakluyt Society - Linschoten Vereeniging Workshop
2025-07-04 09:30 - 18:00 | Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom
The Hakluyt Society (1846) and Linschoten-Vereeniging (1908) have long spearheaded the editing and publication of historical accounts of travel, in line with their respective missions first formulated well over a century ago. Since the late twentieth century, academic and lay interest in historical travel has both reflected and responded to political and social transformations, inviting critical scrutiny of traditional narratives and increasing calls for alternative perspectives. This changing context raises urgent questions about the future(s) of travel editing.
The one-day “Futures of Travel Editing” workshop aims to foster a broad discussion on the challenges, possibilities, and new directions in editing and publishing travelogues, in line with the core mission of the Hakluyt and Linschoten societies. It will be advertised to members of both societies as well as opened to the public. Sessions focus on new sources and methods, the specifics of editing accounts of non-Western travel, and attracting a more global and diverse set of proposals.

Attendance is free of charge, and anyone interested can attend either in-person or online after registering via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-futures-of-travel-editing-hakluyt-linschoten-workshop-tickets-1355389589749?aff=oddtdtcreator

Programme
09.30-10:00: Coffee and welcome
10.00-11:15: Keynote Address: Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, University of Sheffield
Reorienting the Canon: Editing Muslim Women’s Accounts of Global Travel over Three Centuries
11:15-11:30: Break
11:30-13:00: Panel 1: Sources
Ladan Niayesh, Université Paris Cité
Editing Travel Writing Dialogically: The Example of Thomas Herbert’s Persian Glossary (1634-1677)
Mingqing Yuan, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen
Writers, Reporters and Travellers: Chinese Travelogues about Africa in the 1960s
Gábor Gelléri, Aberystwyth University
Beyond the Printed Travelogue: Sources for a Decentred History of Travel
13:00-14:00: Lunch
14:00-15:30: Panel 2: Methods
Carl Thompson, University of Surrey
Reading Between the Lines and Beyond the Page: Editing Pre-1900 Travel Writing by Women
Manjusha Kuruppath, Huygens Institute, Amsterdam
Travelling Others: The GLOBALISE Project and Seeking Out Non-European Travel in the Dutch East India Company Archives
Tristan Mostert, Leiden University/Linschoten-Vereeniging
Digitizing Colonial Texts and Images: Promises and Pitfalls
15:30-16:00: Coffee/tea
16:00-18:00 Roundtable: Institutional Challenges & New Directions
Katie Parker (Royal Geographical Society); Carolien Stolte (Leiden University/ Linschoten Society); Alison Ohta (Royal Asiatic Society); Zoltán Biedermann (UCL/ Hakluyt Society); John McAleer (Southampton)

Abstracts
Keynote
Reorienting the Canon: Editing Muslim Women’s Accounts of Global Travel over Three Centuries (Keynote)
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, University of Sheffield

When imagining intrepid global travellers from past centuries, Muslim women rarely top the list. And yet the roster of queens and captives, pilgrims and provocateurs, who travelled the world before the mid-twentieth century was surprisingly broad and diverse. Some elites and a few others also wrote about their experiences in multiple languages and forms as they criss-crossed between Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. Editing these unfamiliar women authors into a canon of travel writing expands our archive, while also inspiring a theoretical rethink: In what ways are our understandings of travel, traveller and travel writing embedded in specific cultural contexts? Are there specific geographies influencing our perceptions of travel and travel writing? How does narration and recording vary across cultures and time? And what restrictions and possibilities have determined how a subject writes their stories within their own life-worlds?

Panel 1: Sources
Editing Travel Writing Dialogically: The Example of Thomas Herbert’s Persian Glossary (1634-1677)
Ladan Niayesh, Université Paris Cité

Travel editing is among the areas which in recent years have been most subjected to calls to decolonize the canon. Encouraging the editing of non-Western material has been part of efforts to reach more diversity in the field. Yet, obstacles to this desired opening have included the scarcity of surviving material, their marginalization in the records, or their invisibilisation in past editions, forcing us to think also of alternative methods for re-editing existing archives. This paper attempts one such experiment to restore audibility to local interpreters and mediators by editing dialogically a glossary in a 17th-century male-authored European account of a travel to Persia. As a double-voiced text putting side by side two languages and two world views going with them, a glossary is an ideal testing ground for a dialogic method in the Bakhtinian sense of the term. Mine would involve an English-speaking and a Persian-speaking editor shedding light together on the experience of a contact across languages, rather than having one linguistic pole reducing the other to the status of a curiosity viewed from outside, which is what happens in the currently existing editions of this travel account by monologic English-speaking editors.

Writers, Reporters and Travellers: Chinese Travelogues about Africa in the 1960s
Mingqing Yuan, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg

Even though China’s direct contacts with Africa could be traced back to the early 15th century during Zhenghe’s voyages (1405-1433), Chinese travel writings about Africa in the modern era mainly appeared in the 1950s. These travels, mostly as part of the cultural diplomacy of the newly independent People’s Republic of China, were carried out by writers/journalists/editors who have multiple identities and got educated both in the Chinese literati tradition and western higher education system. Their travel writings about Africa combine the traditional Chinese travel writing “youji”, especially its prose or poetry style, with the socialist aesthetics and morality of reportage. By first giving a general overview of Chinese travelogues during that era and then zooming in onto Gao Liang and Wang Ye’s Records of Tanzania (坦桑尼亚散记, 1965), this presentation focuses on the writing and publishing mechanism of Chinese travelogues about Africa and its lasting impacts on the current Chinese writings. It reads both texts and photos in the travelogue together with related (auto)biographies and historical archives to show how Chinese travelogue produces geographical and socio-political knowledge about Africa from a Chinese perspective that reflects China’s self-positioning and ideological world-mapping in the 1960s.

Beyond the Printed Travelogue: Sources for a Decentred History of Travel
Gábor Gelléri, Department of Modern Languages, Aberystwyth University

Travelogues, especially printed travelogues, have often been the sole focus in travel studies; however, they represent a one-sided vision of travel, centred on the traveller. This case study investigates other sources to possibly complement, or even replace travelogues, to offer a more balanced, decentred approach of travel phenomena. In 1924, colonial lobby groups sent elite French students to various parts of the Empire, to witness the results of the mission civilisatrice and the joys of colonial tourism, and to ‘evangelise’ for the colonizing oeuvre. However, none of the participants penned travelogues or reports. Even archival traces are limited: only one of the four missions, to Indochina, has an extensive folder in the French Overseas Archives. In the absence of travelogues, one of the paths was to turn towards private memories. The families of the participants kindly shared numerous materials: texts circulated within and between the families, photographs, objects, as well as family lore transmitted orally.
Even this wealth of material remains limited in its scope – it represents only the metropolitan, ‘Hexagonal’ vision of the trip. Decentring our perspective requires including those who were travelled upon, Mary Louise Pratt’s “travellees”. A systematic survey of French and colonial press revealed that the colony is very active in reacting to, and shaping, the travellers’ experience: both French settlers and the colonized leverage the student group’s arrival to fashion their “travellee identity”, sketch expectation horizons for the travellers, and express agendas beyond the trip itself.

Panel 2: Methods
Reading Between the Lines and Beyond the Page: Editing Pre-1900 Travel Writing by Women
Carl Thompson, University of Surrey

This paper will discuss the editing of women’s historic travel writing in the light of the new contexts established for this branch of the genre by recent developments in both the history of science and the history of ‘predisciplinary’ intellectual culture more widely. It will emphasise the importance of an adjusted, non-anachronistic understanding of travel writing’s role in the intellectual culture of earlier eras, and the similar importance of a revised understanding of the opportunities available to women to participate in contemporary debate and research across a broad spectrum of disciplines and subject-areas.

Travelling Others: The GLOBALISE project and Seeking Out Non-European Travel in the Dutch East India Company Archives
Manjusha Kuruppath, Post-Doctoral Team Lead – Historical Contextualization, Huygens Institute, Amsterdam

To say that travel was the life blood of the Dutch East India Company’s enterprise is stating the obvious. The Dutch East India Company (the VOC) created an empire, an administration and trading zone that spanned three continents in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This politico-economic enterprise was without doubt forged, facilitated and sustained by the movement of people. Crucially, the VOC’s administrative archives records the movement not just of Company personnel, but also its subjects, and commoners, sailors, traders and armies who did not bear necessarily strong associations with the Company. Yet, the size and structure of the archive, and the nature of its archival inventories and document descriptions have meant that only select stories of travel have often come to the fore. Furthermore, it is the narratives of European led VOC embassies to royal Asian courts, tales of shipwrecks and journeys undertaken by Europeans that have been celebrated and memorialized in print. This paper will introduce the GLOBALISE, an infrastructural project based at the Huygens Institute and its agenda to revamp how the Company archives are accessed, read and researched. It will describe the project’s aims to a) machine transcribe five million pages of written archives; b) apply natural language processing methods to this corpus and c) contextualize entities like persons and places in the archives. It will reflect on how the project can challenge the hegemony of tales of European travel by opening up the archive and enhancing its searchability, and detail how users can bypass archival aids and negotiate the enormity of the archive. This paper will then probe how these efforts can help us reconceptualize travel, and identify innumerable travel narratives that positively complicate our understanding of who travelled and for what purpose in the early modern world.

Digitizing Colonial Texts and Images: Promises and Pitfalls
Tristan Mostert, Leiden University/Linschoten Society

Digitizing images and texts relating to early modern colonialism offers the promise of unlocking these sources for wider audiences, yet it also presents its own particular challenges. This talk dives into two case studies: the online database Atlas of Mutual Heritage, which unlocks visual material relating to early modern Dutch colonialism from various institutions, and the works of the Linschoten-Vereeniging – published on paper since 1908, but now also being prepared for online publication. This talk will go into the tremendous potential of making these sources publicly available online, but will also explore its hurdles and risks – technical and financial issues, publishing and copyright regulations, as well as complexities of interpretation and the risk of reproducing outdated colonial perspectives.

Anna McSweeney and Mariam Rosser-Owen: From Storage to Storehouse: Crafting Medieval Spain and The Torrijos Ceiling
2025-06-26 18:30 - 20:30 | Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom

Herald Van der Linde - Majapahit: Intrigue and betrayal in Indonesia's greatest empire
2025-06-23 18:30 - 20:00

*CANCELLED* Caste Away - Documentary Screening
2025-06-19 18:30 - 20:00
This event has been cancelled.

Norchi Prize Award Ceremony
2025-06-12 18:30 - 20:00

Council Meeting
2025-06-12 16:30 - 17:30 | Royal Asiatic Society Council Room, 14 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD, United Kingdom

Johan Van Mechelen (postponed)
2025-06-05 18:30 - 20:00

Olivia Cox-Fill: Walking a Tightrope: Memories of Wu Jieping, Personal Physician to China's Leaders
2025-06-03 18:30 - 20:00
Olivia Cox-Fill
Walking a Tightrope Memories of Wu Jieping, Personal Physician to China’s Leaders
Olivia Cox-Fill reveals the compelling story of Dr. Wu Jieping (1917 – 2011), selected as personal physician to China’s leaders by Premier Zhou Enlai.
‘All dissident scholars, protected by those in power, following the capitalist road, must be eliminated.’ Chairman Mao
The memoir shows what exceptional talent it took to survive and provides rare insight into life in communist China at a time when most leading intellectuals were expelled to the countryside, imprisoned, or beaten to death.
Walking A Tightrope takes us behind the Bamboo Curtain and rice paper walls to reveal the secret facts poisoning relationships between Mao Zedong and his Premier, Zhou Enlai, manoeuvred by Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing. It shows how she tried to seduce and entrap Dr. Wu in order to bring Zhou Enlai down.
It is the only first-hand account by a trusted witness, who was their personal physician.
As one of China’s most prestigious physicians, Dr. Wu developed from an intellectual into a national leader of New China and became a vice chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee. He established his global reputation in the field of urology, (acknowledged as gifted during his post-doc studies at the University of Chicago). This book goes behind the scenes during China’s most destructive and turbulent period, the devastating Cultural Revolution, characterized by Dr Wu as cultural extinction.
Dr. Wu entrusted the inside story to his friend, Olivia Cox-Fill, on condition that she not reveal it until he was dead. It illustrates the lavish lifestyle and demands of some of the hierarchy against a background of the appalling conditions experienced by the populace. The new edition, with illustrative maps and photographs, considers the repressions of the past decade and invites readers to consider what they can do now to revitalise the embers of hope and promise, kindled during the period of “reform and opening-up” of China. It concludes with the author’s reflections on the experiences of Dr. Wu and considers parallels with life in China today.
Author website: https://oliviacoxfill.com
Author’s biographical note: Olivia Cox-Fill studied Medicine at University College Dublin and subsequently studied Chinese Literature and Journalism at Columbia University. She later took a two-year course in Mandarin at SOAS, University of London. Previous Publications:
For Our Daughters: How Outstanding Women Worldwide
Have Balanced Home and Career, Praeger 1996.
ISBN: 9780275951993 (hardback)
Chinese Edition: Nan Ren Neng Zuo de, Nu Ren Neng Zuo de Geng Hao, Tsinghua University Press, 2012.
Consultancy:
Olivia Cox-Fill was the Cultural Advisor for Zhuang Zi Tests His Wife by Su Liqun. [Experimental Theatre, Yadu Enterprise Group, 20 – 25 April 1995.]

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