Islam and Print in South Asia Workshop at the British Library – Part Two

By Galia Umansky|October 16, 2018|Uncategorized|0 comments

Alia Carter

The Two Centuries of Indian Print project is proud to host the second part of a two part workshop being held at the British Library on “Islam and Print in South Asia”.

Part Two will be on Friday 26^th October.

The emergence of print in South Asia has been understood as a transformative moment for Islam in the Subcontinent, heralding a period of revival and reform from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. According to historians such as Francis Robinson, Barbara Metcalfe, Brannon Ingram and others, the introduction of print in the early eighteenth century enlarged and popularised the discursive space of religious authority and encouraged a more local and spatial understanding of religious identity.

However, the discussions on Islam and print in South Asia to date have focused predominantly on Urdu printed texts, on matters of Islamic jurisprudence, ‘ulama or elite individuals and groups, and Islam’s relationship to Hinduism, colonialism and nationalism.

These workshops will widen the scope of earlier scholarship to focus on texts on a range of matters, in different vernaculars, not limited to, but including: Urdu, Arabic, Persian, Dobhashi (Bangla Musulmani), Muslim Mapilla, and Sindhi.

The panels for the second workshop on Friday 26^th October will be on:

• The Social Spaces of the Vernacular
• The Practicalities of Printing: A View from the Trade
• The British Library Collections
• The circulation of religious texts beyond the Subcontinent: from London to Mecca and Calcutta to Australia
• Scandal, Gossip, and Songs

There will be a discussion on workshop themes at the end of the day.

The full programme and abstracts can be found here. Islam and Print Programme 26 October and Islam and Print Abstracts 26 October

The workshops will be held at the British Library in the Foyle Visitor and Learning Centre; British Library Conservation Centre (BLCC), First Floor, British Library

To book a place on the 26^th October workshop, please register on Eventbrite.