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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251106T153000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251106T163000
DTSTAMP:20260419T124019
CREATED:20250903T164416Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250903T164416Z
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SUMMARY:Publications Committee
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/event/publications-committee-7/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251106T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251106T173000
DTSTAMP:20260419T124019
CREATED:20250903T164453Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250903T164453Z
UID:22191-1762446600-1762450200@royalasiaticsociety.org
SUMMARY:Finance & Investments
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/event/finance-investments/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251107T183000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251107T203000
DTSTAMP:20260419T124019
CREATED:20250809T160526Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250925T151512Z
UID:22159-1762540200-1762547400@royalasiaticsociety.org
SUMMARY:(Japan Series) Bashar Tabbah - Shiro 城: A Photographic Exploration of Japanese Castles
DESCRIPTION:Bashar Tabbah is a Levantine-English photographer and author based out of Amman\, Jordan. His work primarily focuses on cultural and religious heritage\, particularly within the Islamic and Mediterranean worlds.  With over 600 sites documented globally\, as well as several books published on Jordan and Palestine\, Bashar continues his work while also sharing his experiences and photography through talks\, exhibitions and publications. \nOver the past two years Bashar has been actively documenting Japan’s incredible feudal era strongholds with the intent to publish a book on the subject in the near future\, in this lecture he takes us on a visual tour of these castles. \n  \nFree and open to all at 14 Stephenson Way\, NW1 2HD \nTo join us online email: mb@royalasiaticsociety.org
URL:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/event/bashar-tabbah-shiro-%e5%9f%8e-a-photographic-exploration-of-japanese-castles/
LOCATION:Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre\, 14 Stephenson Way\, London\, NW1 2HD\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:RAS Lectures & Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/BTT_8984-e1758638921377.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251113T183000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251113T203000
DTSTAMP:20260419T124019
CREATED:20250810T160926Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251110T151652Z
UID:22161-1763058600-1763065800@royalasiaticsociety.org
SUMMARY:Joe Cribb\, Robert Bracey and Marzbeen Jila - The Third Side of the Coin
DESCRIPTION:Join us for a discussion on Marg’s recent volumes\, The Third Side of the Coin\, with Joe Cribb\, Robert Bracey and Marzbeen Jila\, moderated by Naman P. Ahuja. \n  \nFree and open to all at 14 Stephenson Way\, NW1 2HD \nTo join us online email: mb@royalasiaticsociety.org
URL:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/event/the-third-side-of-the-coin-book-launch-with-joe-cribb-robert-bracey-and-shailendra-bhandare-moderated-by-naman-p-ahuja/
LOCATION:Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre\, 14 Stephenson Way\, London\, NW1 2HD\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:RAS Lectures & Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Coins-Asian-Art-ad-1-1-e1758639109715-1.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251118T183000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251118T203000
DTSTAMP:20260419T124019
CREATED:20250811T160011Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251111T110625Z
UID:23978-1763490600-1763497800@royalasiaticsociety.org
SUMMARY:Prof Suranjan Das - Transnational Sites of Indian Nationalism: The Cambridge and Oxford Majlis in Anti-Colonial Politics
DESCRIPTION:The paper presents the first outcome of a collaborative research project to reframe Indian nationalist politics as a transnational formation by foregrounding the under-studied anti-colonial engagements of Indian students in colonial Britain. Taking the Cambridge and Oxford Majlis as twin case studies\, the lecture draws on archival sources and activists’ reminiscences to trace the transformation of Cambridge and Oxford Majlis from debating and social clubs into platforms for Indian nationalism and progressive internationalism—forging solidarities among Indian students and cultivating networks with pro-Indian forces within and beyond the United Kingdom. Notably\, many Majlis activists later assumed leadership roles in postcolonial South Asian politics. By centring student politics\, the paper contributes to debates on the emergence of a global anti-colonial public sphere. \n  \nDr. Suranjan Das\, currently the Vice-Chancellor\, Adamas University\, Kolkata\, was earlier Vice-Chancellor of two front-ranking public universities of India: the Calcutta University and Jadavpur University\, Kolkata. \n  \nDr. Sunrita Dhar-Bhattacharjee is Associate Professor\, Anglia Ruskin University\, UK. \n  \nDr. Suvajit Halder is Assistant Professor\, Panchakot Mahavidyalay\, West Bengal\, India. \n 
URL:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/event/prof-suranjan-das-transnational-sites-of-indian-nationalism-the-cambridge-and-oxford-majlis-in-anti-colonial-politics/
LOCATION:Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre\, 14 Stephenson Way\, London\, NW1 2HD\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:RAS Lectures & Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/arrhha.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251120T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251120T190000
DTSTAMP:20260419T124019
CREATED:20250811T161850Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251114T104420Z
UID:24055-1763661600-1763665200@royalasiaticsociety.org
SUMMARY:(Japan Series) Dr Michelle Damian – Networks of Violence and Trade: Premodern Piracy in Japanese Waters
DESCRIPTION:Third Thursday lecture – Sainsbury Institute\n\n\nThursday 20 November\, 2025\n6:00pm GMT – 7:00pm GMT\nOnline lecture via Zoom.\n50 min lecture followed by Q&A.\nFree and open to all\, booking essential.\nTo check your time zone conversion if you are joining from outside the UK\, click here. \nIf 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.  \nSpeaker\nDr Michelle Damian (Associate Professor of History\, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater) \nAbout the Talk\nPiracy was a constant\, looming threat in premodern Japan. Yet the role of the “pirates” themselves shifted depending upon who was being impacted by their actions. For some\, they were threatening figures\, intimidating travelers and disrupting trade. To others\, they functioned more as “sea lords\,” mimicking terrestrial daimyō (samurai lords) in their control of sea lanes instead of land routes.  In nearly every case\, however\, piratical activities demanded some kind of response from central authorities. Through these actions and reactions we can see the development of different types of networks in premodern Japan. The threat of piracy resulted in forces being mobilized against them\, or in strategies to actively work with them\, or sometimes simply complying with them in order to avoid rousing their ire. From the tenth-century royal court’s mobilization of forces to combat the “first pirate\,” Fujiwara no Sumitomo\, to the fifteenth-century Murakami pirate group’s impact on domestic trade patterns\, this presentation will consider written and archaeological evidence to explore those networks of violence and trade. \nAbout the Speaker\nMichelle Damian is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. She specializes in Japanese maritime history and archaeology\, and has authored chapters in the volumes Land\, Power and the Sacred: The Estate System in Medieval Japan (University of Hawaii Press) and Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on Early Modern Colonialism in Asia-Pacific (University of Florida Press)\, among other publications. Michelle has worked and studied in Japan for over nine years. Her current research focuses on 14th– to 16th– century Japanese maritime-based trade networks\, tracing the movements of both people and commodities in the Seto Inland Sea region. \nImage: The swirling currents offshore Taizaki Island\, Ehime Prefecture\, part of the stronghold of the Nōshima Murakami pirates. Photo by Michelle Damian\, 2013. \nRegister here
URL:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/event/japan-series-dr-michelle-damian-networks-of-violence-and-trade-premodern-piracy-in-japanese-waters-online-lecture/
CATEGORIES:RAS Lectures & Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Currents-off-of-Taizaki-1200x976-1.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251120T183000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251120T203000
DTSTAMP:20260419T124019
CREATED:20250811T161713Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250925T151554Z
UID:22164-1763663400-1763670600@royalasiaticsociety.org
SUMMARY:Dr Vayu Naidu - The Evergreen Epic:  Ramayana as Forest Literature and its Reinventions
DESCRIPTION:Ramayana was told and sung in regional dialects and languages by itinerant storytellers travelling across India. Festivals created infrastructures for pageants\,  at rituals in temples and in  homes for celebrating Diwali\, and this story spread with interpolations. It also travelled across the seas with tradesmen and craftsmen across to south east Asia. Ramayana offers a complex matrix of statecraft\, relationships between parents\, siblings\, men and women through its predominantly linear narrative. More than any other epic\, the relationship between humans\, animals\, and plants in the forest is very marked in this exploration of Ramayana. It is the epic that travelled across land and sea\, as metaphor and with migrants. The Living Legend  draws  every being is connected\, sustaining the equilibrium of love as life between conflicting forces. \nDr Vayu Naidu has followed the different tellings of Ramayana in rural and urban location. Her transposition of the epic as Storytelling in English for theatre audiences began in 1988\, and her research methods experiment with Indian aesthetics and British Contemporary performance with the AHRC. She has completed more than 2000 performances of telling Ramayana. Sita’s Ascent is the sequel to this\, also published by Penguin. The Sari of Surya Vilas (Speaking Tiger books/Affirm Press: India – Australia) features the importance of oral tales in pre-independent India. Manimekalai is a new composition that the Chettinad Heritage Festival commissioned her to compose and perform in 2025\, featuring the Sangam Tamil literary epic. \nThis evening she will talk on her discovery of what makes the forest so significant in the epic and how oral traditions are the swiftest technology of keeping the philosophy alive and why it means so much now. Combining performance practice with a source from the Yoga Vasistha Sara for sadhana on Advaita philosophy\, The Living Legend is part of the oral tradition about the flora and the flaming spirit of this epic. It endeavours to bridge the original context of an epic age with the contemporary listener’s daily reality in the 21st century. \nShe was Founder and Artistic Director of Vayu Naidu Intercultural Storytelling Theatre funded by Arts Council England. She is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow and an Editorial Member of Writers Mosaic. She is Professor of Practice at SOAS. She teaches Indian Theatre Influences at RADA. On the Advisory Committee of the Chelsea Physic Garden\, and as a volunteer\, her research on plant life is owed to her work there. www.vayunaidu.com. As a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society\, this is her first talk. \n  \nFree and open to all at 14 Stephenson Way\, NW1 2HD \nTo join us online email: mb@royalasiaticsociety.org
URL:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/event/dr-vayu-naidu-the-evergreen-epic-ramayana-as-forest-literature-and-its-reinventions/
LOCATION:Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre\, 14 Stephenson Way\, London\, NW1 2HD\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:RAS Lectures & Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The-Living-Legend-CS10-e1758667120813.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251127T183000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251127T203000
DTSTAMP:20260419T124019
CREATED:20250812T161938Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250925T151616Z
UID:22167-1764268200-1764275400@royalasiaticsociety.org
SUMMARY:Prof Neil Price - The Vikings and Asia: New Frontiers of the Norse Diaspora
DESCRIPTION:Asia is not a region readily associated with the Vikings\, the generic (and somewhat problematic) term for the Scandinavians of the period c.750-1050 CE. While it has long been known that the Norse maintained extensive trading links\, and physical presence\, in many regions of Western and Central Asia\, their activities further east and south have hitherto remained largely unexplored. This is puzzling\, in that many thousands of imported Asian objects have been excavated from burials and settlements in Scandinavia\, with origins as far east as India\, Pakistan\, and Tang China. These have their counterparts in Nordic material found in Asia\, such as Baltic amber from elite tombs in China and Korea. Moreover\, textual records of the Abbasid Caliphate’s intelligence service specifically describe Norse traders as travelling to East Asia by land and sea. Shipwreck discoveries\, such as the Belitung and Phanom Surin vessels\, demonstrate the maritime realities of this milieu\, linking the so-called Silk Roads with the Norse networks in Western Asia. This talk\, from the new national Swedish Centre of Excellence for The World in the Viking Age\, will explore this new frontier of the Norse diaspora. \nMap showing the Silk Roads and the source of finds from Viking graves. Credit: Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson.\nNeil Price is Distinguished Professor of Archaeology at the University of Uppsala in Sweden\, where he also leads the national Centre of Excellence for the World in the Viking Age. Educated at UCL\, York\, and Uppsala\, he previously taught at Aberdeen\, Stockholm\, and Oslo universities. A leading specialist in Norse history and traditional religions\, with further interests in the archaeology of the Asia-Pacific\, his research has taken him to more than 50 countries. Neil’s publications have appeared in 22 languages\, and include Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings\, a Times and Sunday Times ‘History Book of the Year.’ He is also a frequent contributor to TV and film\, including as historical consultant for The Northman movie.
URL:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/event/prof-neil-price-the-vikings-and-asia-new-frontiers-of-the-norse-diaspora/
LOCATION:Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre\, 14 Stephenson Way\, London\, NW1 2HD\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:RAS Lectures & Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://royalasiaticsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/20131104124025P1010614-e1758639759718.jpg
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