SOAS’s Brunei Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by Pragya Dhital of DIY and decolonial print and the simple duplication technology used to produce it, with focus on the ‘Gestetner’ stencil duplicator. Stencil duplicating involves copies being made from a cut-out, patterned or lettered sheet (a stencil), through which paint or ink is applied onto paper. Originally intended for bureaucratic purposes, it was one of a series of Victorian-era
Annemari de Silva is Chevening Scholar to SOAS reading for an MA South Asian Area Studies, major in the Politics of Culture in Contemporary South Asia. On the 16th of July, a clash between students at the University of Jaffna erupted over the inclusion of Sinhalese cultural spectacles in the welcome event. Established in 1974, Jaffna University is located at the heart of the Tamil majority North of Sri Lanka. Although
Amina Yaqin is Senior Lecturer in Urdu and Postcolonial Studies in the Department of the Languages and Cultures of South Asia, SOAS. The recent assassination of the renowned qawwali singer Amjad Fareed Sabri in the name of piety in Pakistan has revived the question of the permissibility of music in Pakistani culture. Sabri was shot on June 22nd 2016 by attackers on a motorcycle while he was driving his car in Liaquatabad,
A SOAS Exhibition organized in collaboration with the British Library, National Museum of Iran and UNESCO Parzor Foundation, Delhi The Everlasting Flame Exhibition, which is currently ongoing at the National Museum in New Delhi, was inaugurated on 19 March 2016. The exhibition was originally produced by SOAS, University of London, in 2013. In 2016, to mark SOAS’ centenary year celebrations, the exhibition has been taken to Delhi. Dr. Najma Heptulla, Hon’ble Minister for Minority
The celebration of Bengali history in East End conjures up a picture different to how we imagine the community gleaned from the pages of a widely read fiction Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, where the nostalgic memory of Bangladesh’s paddy fields fuses with life’s chores in the East End. Amidst the iconic curry houses marking out the generation of food entrepreneurship and labour of Britain’s Bangladeshi community, the streets near the
I’ve just returned from the Kumbh Melā at Nasik, the first since that at Allahabad in February 2013 at which I was made a mahant (a cross between an abbot and a brigadier) of the Ramanandi religious order. The ceremony was recorded in the documentary film ‘West Meets East’, which finally got a UK airing on BBC4 on 9th September this year (available on the BBC iPlayer).
The NISU and SOAS South Asia Institute had organized an intimate gathering to glean the process of making a first-of-its-kind Hollywood film by Bollywood director Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The evening was made interesting with dance and song from Chopra’s films and an exclusive look at the theatrical trailer of Broken Horses. The trailer comes with Hollywood filmmaker James Cameron’s comment on the film: “Broken Horses is an artistic triumph. Beautifully