NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR INFORMATION RESOURCES ON ASIA (NACIRA)

CONFERENCE AND ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2011

Revealing hidden gems:

Asian collections in the 21^st century

Monday December 5^th 2011

10.30am-4.00pm

Venue: The Eliot Room at the British Library Conference Centre, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB

Our speakers will be

Gillian Evison and Andrew Skilton of the Bodleian Library on the union catalogue of Buddhist Shan manuscripts project

Annabel Gallop of the BL on the work of the South East Asian section of the British Library, with a visit to the collections

Chris Dillon of University College London on the future scenario for non-Roman script domain names

Yasmin Faghihi of Cambridge University Library on the FIHRIST Islamic Manuscripts Catalogue project of Oxford and Cambridge University Libraries

Peter Kornicki of Cambridge University on the growth of Tangut studies

The cost will be only £25 this year, to include lunch and refreshments (£10fofor students)

For further particulars on how to register please contact Gill Goddard, secretary of NACIRA on: g.m.goddard@sheffield.ac.uk

Freemasonry and the Indian Parsi Community

Some readers of this blog may be interested in a two day conference taking place in London on 22nd and 23rd October 2011, Freemasonry and Empire.

The Saturday programme includes:

Susan Snell, Archivist at the Library and Museum of Freemasonry speaking about the masonic relationship between Umdat ul Umrah (future Nawab of the Carnatic) and the Prince of Wales (future King George IV), Grand Master in 'Western ideology meets Eastern promise: an archival view';
Simon Deschamps, University of Bordeaux III, on 'Freemasonry and the Indian Parsi community: a late meeting on the level'; and Dr Annamaria Motrescu, Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, on 'Uncharted masonic identities in British colonial amateur films, 1920-1940'.

Full details of the conference programme are available online at: http://www.canonbury.ac.uk/conferences/programme11.pdf  

The Flamboyant Mr Chinnery

The Flamboyant Mr Chinnery: an English artist in India and China - a free exhibition at Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street, London, W1G 7LP -
4 November 2011 - 21 January 2012.

The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of events, for which tickets cost £8 per event, (£5 to Asia House Friends).  Booking: 020 7307 5454 or email: enquiries@asiahouse.co.uk

Events include:

Dr Patrick Conner, (Curator of the exhibition) on The Magic and the Myths : George Chinnery in India and China - Wednesday 9th November 2011, 18.45-19.45

Dr Frances Wood on China before Chinnery - Thursday 24th November 2011, 18.45-1945

John Keay on George Chinnery's India - Thursday 1st December 2011, 1845-19.45

Panel discussion on the relationship between China and India in the present day - Monday 16th January 2012, 18.45-19.45

The Himalayan Film Festival 2011

The Himalaya Film and Cultural Festival is on from 13th October. It will celebrate the rich and varied culture of the mightiest mountain range with film, music, art and photography.

The festival will showcase at various venues across the capital through the month of October. You can find more details below:

http://www.himalayafest.org.uk/

Lectures in Cambridge

Empire and the Historical Imagination in Colonial India is the theme of this year's Smuts Commonwealth Lecture, to be given by Professor Dipesh Chakrabarty (University of Chicago) on Tuesday, 18th October 2011, at 5.00 pm in Mill Lane Lecture Room 3, Cambridge.    Everyone is welcome, no RSVP required. The lecture is supported by the Smuts Memorial Fund.

The lecture will focus on the question of how the modern academic discipline of history travelled to India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and gave rise to a fundamentally anachronistic and utopian understanding of the eighteenth century among nationalist historians.

Gandhi and the burden of civility is the title of the Centre of South Asian Studies annual Kingsley Martin Memorial Lecture, to be delivered by Professor Uday Singh Mehta (City University of New York) on Wednesday, 26th October 2011, at 5.00 pm in the Mill Lane Lecture Rooms, Room 9. 

Again, everyone is welcome, no RSVP required, and there will be a Reception afterwards to which everyone is also welcome to attend.