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…
*** 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…
"THE PRINCE WHO BEAT THE EMPIRE. How an Indian ruler took on the might of the East India Company" published by Amberely Publishing June 2018. An acclaimed history of Empire and resistance. An incredible story of the fall of Surat, Mughal India's greatest port to the English East India Company and the moving story of…
This lecture will deal with the arrival of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam in China, and more specifically the recent revival of interest in Buddhist traditions, the vanishing of Christianity and the defiant survival of Islam. On the renewed objectives, the talk will offer how the new Chinese administration’s flag-initiative called 'Belt and Road' will widen…
This event will explore the Britain-Georgia Connection through two talks. The first, on the theme of Personalities & Arts, will consist of a talk on the British-Georgian actress Gayane Mickeladze by Dr. Henry Sanford (her nephew). The talk will include her family history in Georgia, including stories of their friendship with Sir Oliver Wardrop (British…
The Scottish Sinologist Alexander Wylie 1815-1887, : Missionary, Man of Letters, Mathematician Alexander Wylie was one of the leading members of a unique concentration of Missionary Scholars and who lived and worked in Shanghai in the second half of the 19th Century. He was one of the founders of the North China Branch of the…
Alexandra Green is Henry Ginsburg Curator for Southeast Asia at the British Museum. She has a PhD on the subject of 18th century Burmese wall paintings from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She recently curated an exhibition entitled Pilgrims, Healers, and Wizards: Buddhism and Religious Practices in Burma and Thailand (2014) at…
This presentation will discuss several illuminated manuscripts produced in Konya between 1278 and 1332. Consisting mainly of works by Jalal al-Din Rumi and Sultan Walad, most of this material has not been published in detail or studied within a broader cultural framework. The talk will outline the diverse decorative features of these manuscripts and demonstrate that…
*** N.B. This event has been postponed at the request of the speaker. It will now take place on the 26th of February*** The talk will focus on a group of Islamic rock crystal chessmen from the early medieval period in The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait. These fifteen chess pieces have long been recognised…
Dr. John Clarke is curator of Himalayan and South East Asian Art at the V&A Museum in London. He specialises in the arts of Tibet and of South East Asia, in particular of Burma and Thailand. He is the Lead Curator for the Robert H .N. Ho Family Foundation Buddhist Art Galleries at the V&A.