What hides behind this poetic title? One of the most popular Chinese painting manuals from the Edo period in Japan, of course! Did you know that SOAS Special Collections held a very rare complete set of the first Japanese edition of this manual? Kaishien gaden 芥子園画伝 is the Japanese rendering of the famous Chinese printed manual for painters Jie zi yuan hua zhuan 芥子園畫傳 (Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting)
We’ve had quite a busy time of it lately here at SOAS Archives, introducing new students to our search room and some of the treasures of our collections. Our annual Open Day proved a huge success attracting over 100 members of staff and students to come and look at a large display of material and take part in behind the scenes tours of the archive stores. The Archives and Special
“Amazing! Diaries, photos, maps, SOAS history – absolutely wonderful!” “The range of material is a real testament to the collections SOAS holds” “Useful to see the range of the collection so I can promote it when training students and speaking to staff” “I have a far less abstract idea of the archives and special collections now and feel increased confidence in visiting” Just some of the great feedback from our
This week’s blog has been written by Rosa Vercoe, Projects and Operations Manager at LCSS, London Centre for Social Studies, and co-ordinator of the recent Training Programme on Ottoman and Archival Studies, which took place in London and Oxford, and included a visit to SOAS Archives on 5th August. The LCSS Ottoman Programme is designed to fill the gap for so much-needed short-term courses to help researchers and Master’s /PHD
Our guest blogger this week is Angelica Baschiera of the Centre of African Studies who recently led a workshop on Swahili manuscripts held in the SOAS Archives. As part of this year’s SOAS Summer School ‘Understanding Africa’ organised by the Centre of African studies and convened by Dr Seraphin Kamdem, a workshop was dedicated to the SOAS Swahili manuscripts collection on 21 July 2015. Ms Angelica Baschiera, Manager of the
We were delighted to welcome the new Swire Graduate Recruits at the end of August for a visit to the Archives. This is an annual event where recently appointed Swire staff are invited to participate in a series of seminars held at SOAS over three days. The seminars aim to introduce the new recruits to the history and culture of the countries where they are to be posted overseas. The
This week’s blog looks at the ‘India: A People Partitioned’ Oral Archive (ref: OA3) held at SOAS Archives – a significant collection of oral histories relating to the Partition of India in 1947. The 205 interviews in the collection were compiled by the broadcaster and historian Andrew Whitehead for the BBC World Service radio series India: A People Partitioned (1997; 2000) and his later radio and historical work on Kashmir, 1947. The oral archive represents an important social history
Visiting the SOAS archives is an important part of the course African Missionaries, convened by Dr Jörg Haustein of the Department of the Study of Religions, SOAS. The course is concerned with the historical analysis of published and unpublished missionary materials pertaining to Africa. It explores how these sources can be read critically in order to gain a better understanding of the complex dynamics between African societies and European missionaries
This week’s blog is from Dr Farouk Yahya in the Department of the History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS, and describes his recent hands-on workshop in SOAS Archives for students studying the half-unit MA course Illustrated Manuscript Cultures of Southeast Asia. The course is concerned with the arts of the manuscript in Southeast Asia, including those from Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, and covers the artistic,
Are you interested in undertaking historical research? Would you like some help with navigating and using library and archive collections? This year SOAS Archives will be taking part in the History Libraries & Research Open Day being organised by the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Aimed at postgraduate students and early career researchers, the Open Day takes place in the Beveridge Hall on the ground floor of Senate House
