Tuesday 26 February 2013

SAALG 88th Conference and British Library Exhibition - Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire

Participants of the 88th SAALG conference held at the British Library on Friday 8th February enjoyed a fascinating day of talks examining the Mughals, which culminated in a visit to the British Library's current wonderful exhibititon Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire.  

If you have not yet visited the exhibition it is running until 2nd April 2013 and is well worth a visit. It is the first of its kind to document the entire historical period of the Mughal dynasty, from the 16th to the 19th century, through more than 200 exquisite manuscripts and fine paintings drawn almost exclusively from the British Library's extensive collection.


A newly identified portrait of Dara Shikoh (1615-59), the favourite son and heir-apparent of Emperor Shah Jahan (r.1627-58) attributed to the artist Murar, circa 1631-32. This portrait features in the only surviving album compiled by Dara Shikoh, a passionate connoisseur of the arts and scholar of religion. The album was personally dedicated by Dara Shikoh to his beloved wife Nadira Banu Begum in 1641-42; they were married in 1633. Image Copyright of British Library

To enhance your visit you can also visit the British Library's exhibition blog  or view images available on the British Library's Facebook page . The information here complements the exhibition book by J. P. Losty and curator of the exhibition, Malini Roy, which is also a very informative and beautifully presented read.

If you were unable to make it to the SAALG conference we can highly recommend the British Library's Mughal Study Day which is being held on Saturday 9th March, which also includes a visit to the exhibition. For the full program and booking information click here.

SAALG is incredibly grateful to the British Library for hosting our conference and enabling those who attended to learn more about and engage with the sumptuous world of the Mughals. More blog posts will follow here summarizing the SAALG talks and highlighting related pieces from the exhibition, but if you can make a visit to see it in person before April please don't miss out.

With thanks to the British Library Press and Policy office for providing content and images http://pressandpolicy.bl.uk/ 

Saturday 16 February 2013

SOAS Subject Librarians' blog

I have just added a link to the SOAS Subject Librarians' blog - http://blogs.soas.ac.uk/librariannews/ in the My Blog List section of the SAALG blog.   Once you have linked to the SOAS blog, use the categories on the left-hand side of the page to narrow your search to posts relating to South Asia or Southeast Asia.

The SOAS Subject Librarians' blog conveys library news relating to the regions, tips on new resources, links to useful web sites and more.  Recent South Asian post have described the 15th Asian Film Festival taking place in London, 7-17 March 2013; William Dalrymple discussing his new book, Return of a King; and a SOAS exhibition on a Tamil community in North London, which runs until 23 March 2013.

Wednesday 6 February 2013


'Exploring modern South Asian history with visual research methods' 
15-16 March 2013

CRASSH, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Rd., Cambridge, CB3 9DT 

Registration is now open at http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/2066/  
The site also contains information on the final programme for the conference, interview, and the schedule for the pre-conference seminars.  As a preamble to the conference, the Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, is organising a seminar series that will introduce the theme of the conference. Several historians and anthropologists will discuss a selection of anthropological films of South Asia in relation to current historiographical methodologies. The series is organised in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute and CRASSH. 
To find out more see http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/2379/

Monday 4 February 2013

Sir Edmund Leach and Burma

Chined Kulan boats, Botel Tobago (Leach, 1936-1937; ERL/4/15)
Chined Kulan boats, Botel Tobago (Leach, 1936-1937).  King's College Library, Cambridge (ERL/4/15)
Many of you will be fascinated by the archive of the month for February 2013 at King's College, Cambridge.  The focus is on the College's archives of Sir Edmund Leach, the social anthropologist. Particular attention is paid to his early fieldwork, including the research he carried out in Burma, for which he is best known. The site includes photos, an example of his detailed sketches and notes on language. Leach was Provost of King's College, from 1966 until 1979.

To see these and other highlights from King's College archives, please visit http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/archive-centre/archive-month/.