law – South Asian Studies Collective

April 23, 2023

Conversations on South Asia with Robert Travers

Tuesday, May 9 | 12:15–1:15 PM ET | Zoom

Register to attend: https://dartgo.org/conversations-travers

How did Mughal law shape Britain’s empire in India? How did imperial officials co-opt and transform Persianate approaches to law and justice? What influence did late-Mughal practices of petitioning and complaint have on colonial state formation?

In Empires of Complaints: Mughal law and the making of British India, 1765–1793 (Cambridge University Press 2022), historian Robert Travers (Cornell University) explores these questions and employs Persian and English sources to offer a new history of early colonial statecraft. With a focus on revenue collection, taxation, and civil law, Travers recasts the history of law in this pivotal period of transition.

Join us to learn more.

Hayden Bellenoit (US Naval Academy) and Naveena Naqvi (University of British Columbia) will be joining the author for this discussion.

Elizabeth Lhost will moderate.

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Conversations on South Asia is sponsored by the Bodas Family Academic Programming Fund, the Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages Program, and the History Department at Dartmouth College.

All are welcome to attend.

January 26, 2022January 27, 2022

Conversations on South Asia with Sana Haroon

Tuesday, February 8 from 12:15–1:15 pm ET

For centuries, mosques have been a site for Muslim worship, study, socializing, and so much more. They have also been hotly contested, fiercely guarded, and debated with great animosity.

What can legal disputes tell us about the history of Muslim worship? How did battles over mosques and endowments redraw the lines of sectarianism—and secularism—in South Asia?

Cover of "The Mosques of Colonial South Asia: A Social and Legal History of Muslim Worship" by Sana Haroon

Following a series of court cases and legal contests involving congregational sites from across the subcontinent, in The Mosques of Colonial South Asia: A Social and Legal History of Muslim Worship (I. B. Tauris, 2021), historian Sana Haroon (University of Massachusetts Boston) shows how mosques became sites of social influence and control across the nineteenth and into the twentieth century.

Join us on Tuesday, February 8 from 12:15–1:15 pm ET to hear more.

Archaeologist Mudit Trivedi (Anthropology, Stanford University) and legal scholar Adnan Zulfiqar (Rutgers Law School) will be joining as discussants.

Elizabeth Lhost (History, Dartmouth College) will moderate the conversation.

Event attendees may use the following discount codes when purchasing a copy of the book from the publisher MCSA35UK (for UK and Europe orders) and MCSA35US (for US orders).

The Conversations on South Asia Series is sponsored by the Bodas Family Academic Programming Fund, the Asian, Societies, Cultures, and Languages Program, and the Department of History at Dartmouth College.

All are welcome to attend.

February 23, 2021February 23, 2021

March 2: Conversations on South Asia with Nandini Chatterjee

Join us Tuesday, March 2 from 12–1 pm (EST) for the next Conversations on South Asia event with Nandini Chatterjee (History, Exeter University).

This month, we’ll be discussing Chatterjee’s most recently published book, Negotiating Mughal Law: A Family of Landlords Across Three Indian Empires, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020 and is freely available as an open access book through Cambridge Open.

In the book, Chatterjee explores the textures, nuances, conflicts, and complications of Mughal law using an archive of legal documents and materials that she reconstructed from multiple sites and repositories in and beyond South Asia.

Dominic Vendell (History, Exeter University) and Samira Sheikh (History, Vanderbilt University) will join us for this conversation.

Elizabeth Lhost (History Department, Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College) will moderate.

Support for the Conversations on South Asia Series comes from the the Bodas Family Academic Programming Fund, the Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages Program, the Department of History, and the Society of Fellows at Dartmouth.

This event is free and open to the public.