Shot in the arm for Medical History of British India website

A new collection of medical documents from the British Raj is now available to browse and search on the Medical History of British India website. 'Medicine - Vaccination' shows British efforts to vaccinate the Indian population against smallpox using the latest 19th and 20th century western scientific techniques. Over 60 reports reveal the complex nature and the scale of ambition of the vaccination programme in India as well as the conflict between western colonial medicine and indigenous society, culture and systems. The project was generously funded by a grant from the Wellcome Trust.

Next SAALG Conference Friday 5th and Saturday 6th July 2013 - Norwich

SAALG's 89th conference will take place in Norwich on Friday 5th and Saturday 6th July so please add the dates to your diaries. We will be focusing on South Asian Arts and Crafts over the two days - the main talks on Friday will be held at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia on Friday, followed by a visit to the SADACC Trust (South Asian Decorative Arts and Crafts Collection) and a conference dinner in Norwich. On Saturday we will have the opportunity to view the galleries at the Sainsbury Centre.

Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich.
Image copyright of University of East Anglia.

The SADACC Trust, Norwich

Participants will be welcome to take part in one or both days and full details of the talks, schedule for the two days and accommodation options will be sent out in the near future.

If you have any questions in the meantime please don't hesitate to get in touch with the SAALG Chair, Helen Porter hp@royalasiaticsociety.org Tel: 0207 391 9424.

Lectures on South Asia at the Royal Asiatic Society

A couple of upcoming lectures at the Royal Asiatic Society have a focus on South Asia:

The next talk in the main Royal Asiatic Society lecture series will be 'African Soldiers, Governors, Nawabs and Cultural Brokers in South Asia' by Dr Shihan de Silva from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. It will take place on Thursday 11th April at 6pm followed by a Q and A session and a drinks reception.

Following that on Wednesday 17th April at 6.30pm the RAS Student Lecture Series, Dhara D. Anjaria will talk on 'Marginalised Colonials? Non-British European Powers in India vis-a-vis the British'.

Both the lectures are free and open for all. Further information about the speakers and topics will be posted on the Royal Asiatic Society Blog , alternatively email info@royalasiaticsociety.org or telephone 0207 388 4539. For directions to the Society visit the Royal Asiatic Society website.

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/ 

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.

'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/

Sir Edmund Leach and Burma

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/.

News from the Southeast Asia Library Group

http://www.sealg.org

A new issue of the SEALG Newsletter is available to download from the SEALG homepage http://www.sealg.org 

It contains some of the fabulously illustrated papers which were presented at the 87th SAALG Conference / SEALG Annual Meeting 2012, including “Cartoons and propaganda from North Vietnam during the early stage of the Vietnam War” by Dr Sud Chonchirdsin, “Operation ‘Nip-Off’: some aspects of the repatriation of Japanese troops from South East Asia at the end of the Second World War in the Far East” by Dr Sue Sutton, “Ancient Buddhist Monasteries in Burma” by San San May, and “Islam, Trade and Politics across the Indian Ocean” by Dr Annabel Gallop.

SEALG has also launched a blog, which you can elect to follow by email, or RSS feed: http://southeastasianlibrarygroup.wordpress.com/  

It will contain regular updates about SEALG activities, annual meetings, events, conferences, exhibitions, developments in SEA librarianship and news from partner organisations.  

To post information on the blog, contact Jana Igunma at the British Library or Doris Jedamski at Universiteit Leiden.

New affiliation between the SADACC Trust and SIfA

I have been asked by Diana Grattan, Collection Curator at the SADACC Trust, and known to many SAALG members, to let you know about an exciting new affiliation between the South Asian Decorative Arts and Crafts Collection Trust (SADACC) and the Sainsbury Institute for Art (SIfA) at the University of East Anglia.

The South Asian Decorative Arts and Crafts Collection Trust was established in July 2010 as a charity (RCN 1137415) and in December 2012 it became affiliated to the University of East Anglia through the Sainsbury Institute for Art (SIfA).  Under this agreement SIfA and the SADACC Trust are working together to establish a South Asian Study Centre and Museum.  This involves SIfA using the collection and library as an educational resource in its teaching programmes and assisting in the development of the Museum.  The SADACC Trust, in turn, will help fund SIfA postgraduate work and continue to fund the development of the museum and work of the Trust.

For more information, please contact Diana Grattan at the Trust, http://www.southasiandecorativeartsandcrafts.co.uk/

Medical History of British India podcast

Happy New Year!

My talented colleagues in the National Library have made a film of me talking about the Medical History of British India project. The 4 minute film gives an overview of the content of the online reports.

It also shows what very few people actually see – the rolling stacks where the original reports are stored as part of the India Papers collection. It is very satisfying that through funding from the Wellcome Trust, digitisation technology and the work of National Library of Scotland staff these pages can now be read around the world. For free!

Enjoy the video.

AHRC/ESRC International Placement Scheme

For full details and active links please go to
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding-Opportunities/Pages/InternationalPlacementScheme.aspx

88th SAALG Conference - Friday 8th February 2013 - The Mughals

SAALG is very pleased to announce that its next conference will take place on Friday 8th February at the British Library. The day will focus on The Mughals and will include talks on Mughal, music, art and the Mughal imperial library. There will also be a fantastic opportunity to view the current British Library exhibition Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire with highlights presented by the curatorial team.

A folio from the Royal Asiatic Society's manuscript Persian 239 which bears the seals
of several Mughal Emperor's and is displayed in the current British Library exhibition 

The full program for the day is:

10.15 - 10.45    Arrival, networking and refreshments
10.45 - 11.00    Welcome by Dr Malina Roy (Curator of Visual Arts, British Library)
11.00 - 11.40    The 'Spurious' Jahangirnamah: A Preliminary Study. Dr Saqib Baburi (Teaching Fellow, Department of the Study of Religions, SOAS)
11.40 - 12.20    The Mughal Imperial Library. Ursula Sims-Williams (Curator of Iranian Collections, British Library and Honorary Librarian, Ancient India and Iran Trust)
12.20 - 13.00    SAALG Business Meeting
13.00 - 14.00    Lunch
14.00 - 14.40    'Cultivation and connoisseurship: the social history of musical manuscripts in Mughal India' Dr. Katherine Schofield (Lecturer, Music Department, Kings College London)
14.40 - 15.20    'Image and essence in the Akbarnama' Emily Hannam (MPhil Student, Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford)
15.20 - 16.00     Guided tour of highlights of the British Library Exhibition 'Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire'
16.00 - 17.00     Additional time to view the exhibition

The conference fee including the visit to the exhibition is £15 payable on the day. Although lunch is not included the British Library has a number of food and drink establishments on site and so there will still be an opportunity to network with colleagues during the break. For more details visit http://www.bl.uk/whatson/planyourvisit/fooddrink/index.html

If you would like to attend please email Helen Porter, SAALG Chair at hp@royalasiaticsociety.org for a booking form or more information, by Friday 1st February.

Puppets from the East

Image copyright:  SADACC Trust

'Puppets from the East' is the title of a new exhibition of wayang-golek puppets from Indonesia now showing at the SADACC Trust in Norwich.

Admission is free, and the opening hours are:

• 9.30am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday
• 9.30am to 5.30pm on Saturdays

It is closed on Bank Holidays and Sundays.

The SADACC Trust is located in the Old Skating Rink Gallery at:
    34-36 Bethel Street
    Norwich
    Norfolk
    NR2 1NR
    United Kingdom

Telephone: 01603 663890

E-mail: info@sadacc.co.uk

By road: Follow brown signs for 'The Forum'. We are 50m from the Forum Car Park entrance. Parking is available whilst visiting the gallery.

Nepal's endangered languages on Radio 4

Dr Mark Turin will present a three-part series on BBC Radio 4 on themes of language diversity, endangerment and policy that starts next week. The first episode, recorded in Nepal over the summer, airs from 11:00-11:30am GMT on Monday, 3 December, 2012.

Alongside analogue and digital radio transmission in the UK, the programme will be streamed live online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/

The series has its own set of web pages on the BBC site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p6zpl

Episodes two and three will cover the linguistic landscape of South Africa and New York City, and will be aired 11:00-11:30am on Monday 10 and Monday 17 December respectively. The programmes will be archived as podcasts by BBC Radio 4.

For more information on Dr Mark Turin, see:  http://markturin.commons.yale.edu/

NACIRA Conference 2012

 The 2012 conference and Annual General Meeting for the National Committee for Information Resources on Asia will be held on Tuesday 4th December, 10.30-16.30 at the Needham Research Institute in Cambridge.  The theme of this year's conference is Applied Materials: making oriental collections visible, and looks at ways of raising the profile of your collections.  It will include presentations on

• the British Library's Mughal exhibition
• the British Museum's shunga exhibition
• the Cambridge University Sanskrit manuscripts project
• the Cambridge University Genizah digitization project

There will also be a visit to a display of manuscripts from Cambridge University Library's collections.

The cost is £30, including lunch (£10 for students) and further information about the conference and registration can be found here.