Indian Ocean Print Cultures launch

Africa v. 81, no. 1, 2011

The International African Institute (IAI) and Cambridge University Press (CUP) have invited members of the South Asia Archive and Library Group to celebrate the launch of a special issue of AFRICA 'Print Cultures, Nationalisms and Publics of the Indian Ocean'.  The issue, edited by Isabel Hofmeyr and Preben Kaarsholm, will be the first to be published by CUP in partnership with IAI.  

The launch party will take place on Monday 28 February, Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), from 6pm. RSVP to Stephanie Kitchen.  All are welcome - please pass this notice on to anyone who may be interested.

Hidden voices of Muslim women

A talk given by Dr Pippa Virdee of De Montfort University entitled 'Hidden Women: uncovering the veil of silence during the partition of Punjab, India 1947' is now available as a podcast from the National Archives.

Using first-hand accounts, Dr Virdee reveals how women, often sheltered from private and public spaces, created their own space during this complex and traumatising time.

(Image courtesy of National Archives)

See: http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/podcasts/hidden-women.htm

Take a look at this

The National Library of Scotland’s web feature The Medical History of British India has been updated with a further 130 medical reports from the India Papers collection. These rare and exciting documents cover c.1850-1950 and are available online free of charge. They include reports on epidemics, public and army health, drugs and medicines, plus the workings of medical colleges, laboratories and lock hospitals.

Users can search and browse by keyword or by facets such as people, places, year and subject. Users can also choose to confine searches to individual chapters or expand to volume or collection level. The option of searching book content can find names of people or more obscure diseases. Transcriptions of pages are available, together with jpegs and pdfs which can be downloaded. Users can share and bookmark pages via Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Delicious.

Detailed maps, charts and extensive tables show regional histories of disease and the role of government as well as providing an insight into the development of western medicine in a colonial context. During the last decade there has been a lively interest in colonial medicine; this online resource is aimed at medical, social, military and colonial historians, historians of South Asia and also genealogists.

I’m thrilled to say that this is not the end, as in the coming years we’ll be adding British Raj reports concerning Veterinary medicine, Vaccination and Lunatic Asylums.

I’d like to thank many of my National Library of Scotland colleagues, particularly the Digital Library staff, for making this possible. We are also most grateful to the Wellcome Trust for their generous funding.

You can also find the digitised India Papers in the National Library of Scotland's Digital Archive.

(photo credit: Wellcome Images)

Nepal Study Day 2011

 

With support from the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) and the Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge, the Britain-Nepal Academic Council (BNAC) will hold its 9th Nepal Study Day at the University of Cambridge from Wednesday, 20 April 2011 to Thursday, 21 April 2011.  It will be an opportunity to share research findings and discuss ongoing projects that focus on Nepal or the Nepali cultural world.

Location: CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1RX

To register, please email Dr Mark Turin.

For further details, see: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1580/