*Please Note: This event was previously listed as taking place on the 22nd of January but had to be postponed at the request of the speaker.* 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…
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At the end of the nineteenth century a very special group of British women went to India. They were the doctors and nurses. Most of them were missionaries, but a significant number was secular, not associated with any specific denominations. They wanted to provide medical care to the respectable Indian women who lived in seclusion…
LOST MAPS OF THE CALIPHS Drawing the World in Eleventh-Century Cairo by Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith About a millennium ago, an unknown author in Cairo completed a large and richly illustrated book. In the course of thirty-five chapters, this book guided the reader on a journey from the outermost cosmos and planets to Earth…
Tipu Sultan of Mysore is one of the most colourful characters in the history of South Asia. On the one hand he is often castigated as a fanatic Muslim and brutal ruler, but at the same time he is regarded by many as a martyr whose wars against the British foreshadowed the historic uprising of…
On Tuesday 26 March 2019, at 6.30pm, the Royal Asiatic Society will host a Collections Open Evening. As with similar occasions in the past, the evening will feature a series of short talks about items from the collection, and should provide a great opportunity to get “up close and personal” with rarely seen books, manuscripts,…
Our friend David Bellis has kindly offered to come and talk to us again on his collection of photographs of old Hong Kong. David will share some more of his favourite photos and stories from his growing archive of historic Hong Kong images. The talk follows recent publication of his latest book “Old Hong Kong…
The Hidden History of Studio Ghibli: Short Films, Advertising and the Industrial Reality of Japanese Animation While Studio Ghibli’s films have become famous around the world, their animation production in other areas remains obscure. Ghibli, like most animation studios in Japan, has long supplemented its feature film production by doing animation-for-hire. These ancillary productions take…
The Royal Asiatic Society will host a book launch of Talat Ahmed's new critical biography Mohandas Gandhi: Experiments in Civil Disobedience, which highlights the contradictions in Gandhi's non-violent philosophy. Dr Ahmed will discuss the book with Professor David Arnold followed by a question and answer session, with copies of the book available for purchase after…
Dr. Simon Wolfgang Fuchs is a Lecturer in Islamic and Middle East Studies at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany. He is interested in how the Islamic scholarly tradition is debated and negotiated in modern and contemporary Muslim societies. Hisresearch revolves around the travel of ideas between West, Central, and South Asia, with a focus on religious…