RESEARCH GROUPS

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Early Modern South Asia

Convenors: Professor Christopher Minkowski and Dr Polly O’Hanlon

This research group has been formed to focus scholarly attention and methodological reflection on the social, intellectual and cultural history of South Asia in the early modern period. The sources for this kind of history — classical, vernacular literary, historical-archival, visual, material — are extraordinarily rich, but research and publication to date has dealt primarily with the early modern state, economic systems and colonial and post-colonial history. Understanding South Asia in a global context — as part of the political, economic and cultural changes that were occurring in many places in the early modern world — often with variable and contradictory local consequences — opens up a range of interpretative possibilities and challenging questions for social history.

The early modern period saw the creation of new ideologies of kingship and empire, with profound consequences for regional centres of culture and power. There was a complex interplay between classical literary forms and emerging vernacular communities with their own literary conventions. Underpinning these changes were growing communities of settled urban gentry and intermediate service groups, many with their own cultures of consumption and display. Moreover new patterns of circulation emerged for skilled people, knowledge systems and texts, both in South Asia and beyond. Significant intellectual developments accompanied these changes: new understandings of historical time, of sacred texts, of terrestrial geography and of natural history. Social change often entailed local and domestic consequences, prompting new literary forms for their expression. At the same time, the period also saw significant continuities, for example the conservation of sacred knowledge and the communities responsible for their reproduction. These continuities present an intellectual challenge as important as the epistemological innovations and globalization for which the early modern is best known.

The group is seeking to strengthen connections between scholars working in this field in the UK and to attract collaboration and exchange with scholars working on the early modern in South Asia and elsewhere. The Group also seeks to support the development of individual and collaborative projects in its field of interest.

Group Members

• Dr Jeevan Deol, Lecturer in Urdu and South Asian Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
• Dr Jonardon Ganeri, Reader in Philosophy, University of Liverpool.
• Professor Christopher Minkowski, Boden Professor of Sanskrit, University of Oxford.
• Dr Polly O’Hanlon, Professor-elect of Indian History and Culture, University of Oxford.
• Dr Francesca Orsini, Lecturer in Hindi, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
• Dr David Washbrook, Reader in Modern South Asian History, University of Oxford.

Scholars interested in contributing to this group are invited to contact Professor C. Minkowski (see link boxes to the right).