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.

The SADACC Trust

 SAALG members are warmly invited to three exhibitions at the SADACC Trust in Norwich:

• Early Visions of India. Three pioneering British artists: aquatints by Thomas and William Daniell and James Baillie Fraser
• Arts and crafts of the Swat Valley and tribal areas of Northern Pakistan
• Beadwork from Gujarat, Western India

The South Asian Decorative Arts and Crafts Collection is located  in the The Old Skating Rink Gallery in Bethel Street, Norwich.

Copyright © 2011 South Asian Decorative Arts and Crafts.

Comprising over 3000 items, it includes pictures and prints, architectural items, vernacular furniture and objects which illustrate the everyday arts and crafts from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, though good examples of modern production are also included.

Geographically, the collection concentrates primarily on South Asia and to a lesser extent on neighbouring countries such as Afghanistan, Burma, Thailand and Indonesia.

Copyright © 2011 South Asian Decorative Arts and Crafts.

The collection originated following a number of journeys through South Asia in the 1970s and additions to it have continued ever since. In the 1980s, pictures and prints started to be collected covering the period from the late 18th century through to the early 20th century, particularly where these portrayed aspects of everyday life in the region. Good examples of modern traditional miniature painting have also been collected or commissioned.

Copyright © 2011 South Asian Decorative Arts and Crafts.

The SADACC Trust has been actively acquiring good examples of everyday South Asian arts and crafts and displaying these through a series of exhibitions. It also holds periodic lectures on South Asian arts, crafts and culture, and awards travel and educational scholarships to postgraduate students for the study of South Asian arts, crafts and culture. It is also building a library of resources on South Asian arts, crafts and culture.

The Trust's website includes digital images of an increasing number of items in the collection, such as the fine Company School painting, beadwork hat and Nuristani door illustrating this post and I would encourage readers to explore their website and visit the collection. I very much hope that a future SAALG conference will include a visit to this fine collection in Norwich.

Shakta Traditions - Oxford Conference, 10–11 September 2011

A conference on Shakta traditions, organised by the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies in collaboration with the Section for the Study of Religion at Aarhus University, will take place at Somerville College, Oxford on 10th and 11th September 2011.  Registration costs £15 for the weekend. All are welcome.
See: http://ochs.org.uk/research/sakta-traditions

The conference aims to present an interdisciplinary survey of Śākta history, practice and doctrine in its diversity as well as to convey something of the Śākta religious world view that is distinctive and sets ‘Śāktism’ apart from other South Asian religious traditions.

For a detailed programme of speakers and talks, see: http://ochs.org.uk/research/sakta-traditions

Changes to the British Library's website

Recently we introduced a new home page and search facility on our website. This new home page, which is the result of extensive user testing, has new navigation labels, a rotating carousel of images and dropdown menus to help users find our full range of web content and services much more easily.
While the new home page looks quite different, the rest of the website is unchanged. So there is no need to edit your bookmarks or favourites. Meanwhile, a major project to redevelop a new website from scratch is already underway.
The new search ('Explore the British Library') is a major change, as it now allows users to search much more than our web pages and main catalogue. It retrieves twice as many journal article records as before, as well as sound recordings, 'trade literature', theses, datasets, archived UK websites, maps and music scores - adding up to over 60 million items.
Web page and catalogue results appear in separate tabs, and it is is easier to refine your results than before.
Please let us know what you think webeditor@bl.uk
You can also tweet your comments using #BLnewhomepage

SAALG summer conference

Our 85th conference was held on 1st July in Edinburgh and spread over two days. On day 1, Dr Andrew Grout was our attentive host at the University of Edinburgh Library, and between talks we were given a tour of the refurbished building and got a chance to see some of the South Asian collections.

On Saturday, Dr. Henry Noltie was our guide to the Library of the Royal Botanic Gardens, and we had a behind-the-scenes look at a selection of the Garden's fabulous collections of dried plants and rare books, including items from the collection of Francis Buchanan Hamilton.

The Flight of the Hog Wild

A recent enquiry to the National Library of Scotland about the Indian Medical Service led me into a fascinating World War II journey which began with an American B-29 bomber.
On August 29th 1945 the Hog Wild was on a POW supply mission when it was shot down by Soviet fighters. Its 13-man crew was interned in Konan POW camp (now Hungnam, North Korea) for sixteen days while Soviet and American commanders negotiated for their release.
The camp already held 354 Allied POWs (mostly British) who were captured during the fall of Singapore in 1942. One of the prisoners was Canadian Major Harry V. Morris (pictured below), who had served in the Indian Medical Service.

Born and educated in Newfoundland, Morris graduated with a medical degree (with surgery specialty). He spent several months studying at London's Royal Military College before arriving in India in early 1939. He was stationed at the Indian General Hospital, Lahore and then moved to No. 12 Indian General Hospital in Malaya.

It is thought that he was captured by the Japanese in February 1941, held first in the notorious Changi Prison in Singapore and then in a North-East Korean POW camp. His wife and two children escaped Singapore. Major Morris was transferred to Konan, imprisoned by the Japanese for a further two years; he was one of five Allied officers at the camp. The men laboured long hours under extremely hazardous and strenuous conditions at a nearby carbide factory (pictured below), although the Japanese wouldn't permit an officer from doing any work of the sort. The crew of the Hog Wild were released in mid-September 1945; Major Morris and his fellow POWs were finally freed and repatriated a week later. The aircraft crew talked to the American Press, revealing the people, places and events surrounding the downing of the B-29.

You can read much more about the Hog Wild in a forthcoming book and the book's comprehensive website.

Thanks to Bill Streifer (New York) and Heather Home (Queen's University Archives) for the information. The photo of Major Morris was supplied by John Mill, son of Lieut. Ronald Mill, the sole Australian officer at the camp. Photo of the Hog Wild taken from The Flight of the Hog Wild website.

Arabic manuscripts online

Arabic Manuscripts Online is a digital manuscripts library, accessible for free, based on the Wellcome Library's Asian Collection.  It includes manuscripts in Arabic and Persian which have been photographed in their entirety, and can be viewed in detail alongside comprehensive manuscript descriptions.  Researchers can also compare two manuscripts side-by-side to illuminate the differences.

Significant passages in the manuscripts, such as the incipits, basmala, explicits and section headings (for most but not all manuscripts), are fully transcribed, and extensive physical descriptions have been recorded by conservation specialists for most of the manuscript descriptions.

It is also possible to explore the content of the online catalogue more selectively, where manuscripts may be browsed according to their categories or searched via the full text search facility. Users can search using the old Arabic alphabet through a virtual keyboard, matching the original content of the manuscripts. The results of the searched manuscripts may be further narrowed down through the faceted filters, which retrieve more precise results for the researcher's convenience.  There are themed help pages and a useful glossary.

Arabic Manuscripts Online was made possible through the Wellcome Arabic Manuscript Cataloguing Partnership (WAMCP) and combines the efforts of the Wellcome Library, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and Kings College London Digital Humanities Department.  It is funded by JISC and the Wellcome Trust.

Jubilee Time Capsule

The Royal Commonwealth Society has launched its Jubilee Time Capsule Project to coincide with the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.  It aims to build a social archive about life in the Commonwealth over the last sixty years. It is now crowd-sourcing for content and hopes to receive stories from across the globe, and from a wide variety of age groups.  Archives, libraries and museums are encouraged to see if they have any material to contribute to the Time Capsule.

Contributions can include interviews, film, verse, photographs, art-work... and they hope to find a story for each of the 21,915 days in the last 60 years, from 6th February 1952 until 5th February 2012.

The best way of keeping updated on the project, and tracking its most interesting stories is via the Jubilee Time Capsule blog .

The Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge - updated film catalogue

The Centre of South Asian Studies (CSAS), University of Cambridge, has recently made available an updated version of its online film catalogue. It is now possible to research each of the 285 films as part of a cross-archival database that enables the viewer to access in greater detail the CSAS’ photographic, paper and oral history collections. This new and comprehensive online film catalogue, and the current digitization of another 80 films, is part of an on-going educational programme run by Dr Kevin Greenbank and Dr Annamaria Motrescu that uses the Centre’s visual collections in teaching about colonial India.

The Southeast Asia Library Group and early printing in Burma

Street in Wuntho by Felix Beato, 1889-1891.
(Cambridge University Library Y3029A-014)

This is a post to introduce the Southeast Asia Library Group. A  pan-European group, SEALG hosts an annual meeting, publishes an annual newsletter and maintains a JISC mail list  as well as linking to some incredibly useful Southeast Asian digital collections, cataloguing tools and members' initiatives on its website.

In its latest newsletter San San May (Curator for Burmese, British Library) writes about early printing in Burma (see pages 32-40) and includes a list of books held at the British Library which were printed at Maulmain, Tavoy or Rangoon before 1855.

SEALG's next meeting will be held in Cambridge,  9th-10th September, in collaboration with the 26th ASEASUK conference.  For further information, go to SEALG's home page, and look under the Meetings tag.  Alternatively, contact Jana Igunma (Henry Ginsburg Curator for Tai, Lao and Cambodian) at the British Library.

For a British Library resource guide to their Southeast Asian collections, see: http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpregion/asia/seasia/searesources.html

Burma through the lens of Linnaeus Tripe

Delegates who attended SAALG's Borderlands Conference at the Royal Asiatic Society in January will be delighted to see Andrew Jarvis' article published in Modern Asian Studies (v.45, no.4, July 2011).  Entitled 'The Myriad-Pencil of the Photographer' : seeing, mapping and situating Burma in 1855 (pp. 791-823), it questions how Tripe's photographs should be interpreted today.

Ancient India & Iran Trust: New issue of INDIRAN

A new issue of the Ancient India and Iran Trust's newsletter, INDIRAN, is now available.

This issue includes an account by Bi Bo, visiting scholar from Renmin University of China, Beijing, of her work on Sogdian manuscripts from Khotan, Xinjiang. Ian Proudfoot, Australian National University, describes exciting finds of unique Malay printed books. Deborah Sutton, University of Lancaster, examines the Hindu temple in terms of political and cultural encounter during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The newsletter also includes reports of a joint presentation by Annabel Gallop and Venetia Porter which accompanied their travelling exhibition 'Lasting impressions: the world of Islamic seals', Frantz Grenet's Bailey memorial lecture 'The rediscovery of the court culture of the Qarakhanids', and events held in Cambridge to celebrate 1000 years of Firdawsi's epic poem the Shahnama.

Download a digital version of INDIRAN from: http://www.indiran.org/Indiranapril2011.pdf