Today, SOAS is currently one of only two UK universities where the top four management positions (President, Director, Registrar, Chair of the Board of Trustees) are held by women. In 2012, renowned humanitarian and activist, Graça Machel, was appointed as the new President of SOAS and in 2015, Baroness Valerie Amos CH was appointed as the first female Director of SOAS. Our female alumni too have gone on to inspire people
Earlier this month, SOAS buried a time capsule to celebrate its Centenary, which will be opened in 2116. But what’s it like to be on the other side and open a time capsule? Christine Wise, Assistant Director (Research Library Services) at SOAS, shares her memories of discovering a time capsule buried at The Women’s Library at LSE and the excitement of finding a link to the past. Some months ago, Centenary Project Manager Shoshanna Goodman and
Prof. Dr. Dewi Anwar is a renowned Indonesian academic and policy maker. She is a SOAS alumna and holds her BA Hons and MA from SOAS. Currently the Deputy for Government Policy Support to the Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia, Dewi is also a Research Professor and held the position of the Deputy Chairman for Social Sciences and Humanities at The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) from 2001-2010.
Professor Adrian Mayer, 93, a major figure in the development of Indian social anthropology, shares his memories of rural India in the 1950s. Speaking to Professor Edward Simpson, he reveals how studying a language at SOAS started a remarkable career, leading him to the South Pacific and to rural India. When Professor Adrian Mayer joined SOAS in 1947 to study Hindi he had already spent two years in India, working
Desi Anwar is a renowned Indonesian national broadcaster in television journalism and news production. Ms Anwar was born in Bandung, Indonesia in 1962 and studied for her BA in French and European Studies at the University of Sussex. She is a SOAS alumna and holds an MA in Indonesian and Malay Studies. Ms Anwar started her television career as a reporter, anchor and producer with Indonesia’s first commercial television channel and pioneered the
Professor David Snellgrove, a leading SOAS scholar of the religion, languages and history of Buddhist India and Tibet, died earlier this year aged 95. He joined SOAS in 1950 and made a major contribution to Tibetan and Buddhist studies. Dr Tadeusz Skorupski, Emeritus Reader in the Department of Religions and Philosophies at SOAS; Cathy Cantwell, Associate Faculty Member, Oriental Institute, University of Oxford; and Francesca Fremantle, scholar and translator of Sanskrit and Tibetan works, share their stories
By Dr Sarah Stewart, Lecturer in Zoroastrianism A month after SOAS’s first international centenary exhibition Everlasting Flame, Zoroastrianism in History and Imagination opened at the National Museum in Delhi educational events and guided tours are well underway. In addition, the diary for school visits, themed walks and workshops for families is already booked through until the exhibition closes on 29th May. Below are pictures from a school visit on Saturday 16
The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the masterpieces of world literature. Exploring mankind’s universal longing for immortality, the poem tells the story of a Babylonian hero’s quest for glory and flight from death. The genesis of the story stretches back almost 4000 years, when an anonymous Babylonian poet composed the epic tale in the Akkadian language. Centuries of war, upheavals, , conquest and empire across the region we