Podcasts about indo persian

The history of the concept of waḥdat al-wujūd finds its ‘point of rising' (maṭlaʿ) with the ideas of Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240) on the singularity of al-ḥaqq and the ways in which that unique and absolute being is manifest in its many theophanies. Its limits (ḥudūd) and extension (inbisāṭ), however, go far beyond and reach into the very aesthetics of literature traditions across Islamicate and Persianate languages and cultures. A generation ago William Chittick indicated the significance of the reception of Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240) in this context, and the sheer number of commentaries, marginalia, paratexts, and independent treatises that engages the metaphysics and devotional tradition of the Andalusian master testifies to a major commitment. The earliest presence of Ibn ʿArabī was in the poetry of Fakhr al-dīn al-ʿIrāqī (d. 1289), a devotee in the presence of the Suhrawardī Sufi Bahāʾ al-Dīn Zakarīyā (d. 1262) in Multan, followed by Chishtī and Kubravī masters already in the pre-Mughal period. We still have much to do to consider the literary heritage of early modern pre-colonial and colonial South Asia in terms of the broad long tradition of ḥikma, taṣawwuf, kalām, and ʿerfān. One of the decisive elements in this tradition is the way in which Persian and vernacular literary traditions negotiated the influence of Ibn ʿArabī and read his ideas in ways that conformed to their own aesthetics of presence and metaphysics of beauty. I will consider four case studies that modify and read Ibn ʿArabī in their own ways: the Mughal prince Dārā Shukoh (d. 1659), Bēdil (d. 1720) perhaps the greatest Indo-Persian poet, Mīr Dard (d. 1785) one of the pillars of Urdu poetry and the pivotal thinker of the new ‘Muḥammadan way' of Sufism, and the great Punjabi poet of the 18th century Bullheh Shah. None of these figures was a simple imitator or transmitter – literary traditions like philosophical ones acquire a dynamic that arises from creative misreadings and liminal interpretations as well as exciting new aesthetic formulations. In this way, we can consider how the metaphysics of the unity of existence and often its ethical and aesthetic implications were naturalised and transformed in the soil of Hindustān.

Shahzia Sikander talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Sikander, born in 1969 in Lahore, Pakistan, trained in the tradition of Indo-Persian manuscript painting and has used its forms, techniques and language as a launchpad for a wide-ranging engagement with colonial and postcolonial histories, with feminism, gender and sexuality, and with cultural identity and narratives around race. Working in drawing, painting, animation, video, mosaic and most recently sculpture, she has created a body of work in which existing and invented images and forms are juxtaposed to vivid and poetic effect. Technically exquisite and conceptually profound, her works have an instant impact but reward slow looking with layered narratives, references and histories. She discusses her early discovery of Michelangelo in Lahore, explains how she has channelled the “soulfulness” Eva Hesse found in minimalism in her response to historic manuscript painting, reflects on the importance of her teenage experience of Mogadishu, Somalia, and speaks about the enormous importance of poetry to her work, including the US writer Adrienne Rich's translations of the Indian poet Mirza Ghalib. Plus, she gives insight into her life in the studio, and answers our usual questions, including which artwork, if she could only have one, she would most like to live with.Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior, Palazzo SoranzoVan Axel, Venice, Italy, 20 April-20 October; Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio, US, 14 February-4 May 2025; Cleveland Museum of Art, 14 February-8 June 2025. Shahzia Sikander: Havah…to breathe, air, life, University of Houston, Texas, US, until 31 October; Entangled Pasts, 1768–now: Art, Colonialism and Change, Royal Academy of Arts, London, until 28 April 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome.

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode No. 541 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Shahzia Sikander. This weekend the Museum of Fine Arts Houston opens "Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities," a survey of the first 15 years of Sikander's career, from roughly the mid-to-late 1980s and until the early 2000s. It was curated by Jan Howard and Marny Kindness, and at the MFAH by Dena M. Woodall. The exhibition will remain on view through June 5, when it will travel to the RISD Museum in Providence, RI. The RISD Museum and Hirmer have published an excellent book of the same title in association with the exhibition. It was edited by Sadia Abbas and Jan Howard. Indiebound and Amazon each offer it for about $45. Sikander came to prominence by melding Indo-Persian manuscript painting traditions with contemporary life and issues such as feminism, cultural identity, and more. Among the dozens of museums that have presented solo shows of her work are the Perez Art Museum in Miami, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.

Prathama Banerjee's book Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South (Duke UP, 2020) studies the rise of modern politics in India, between the mid-19th and the mid-20thcenturies, at the cusp of colonial modern, classical Indian, Indo-Persian and regional vernacular ideas. It unpacks the political, following modern common sense, into four elementary aspects – Self, Action, Idea and People – and shows how each element is structured around a conceptual instability, rendering its very elementary status questionable. The political subject is split by the tension between renunciation and realpolitik; action driven by the dialectic between labor and karma, each with its distinctive means-end configuration; the idea torn by its troubled relationships with the economic and the spiritual; and the people forever oscillating between being pure structure, as in the political party, and being pure fiction. Through this account, the book argues that the modern political works by virtue not of any irreducible principle or autonomous logic, a priori identifiable as political, but an unceasing process of differentiation of the political from the non-political – variously imagined at various times as science, religion, society, economics and aesthetics – as also through a simultaneous grounding and delimitation of the political by the specter of the extra-political. The book invites us to go beyond postcolonial and decolonial criticism and engage in the positive and creative task of producing new political theory, inspired by histories and practices from the non-European world. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Prathama Banerjee's book Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South (Duke UP, 2020) studies the rise of modern politics in India, between the mid-19th and the mid-20thcenturies, at the cusp of colonial modern, classical Indian, Indo-Persian and regional vernacular ideas. It unpacks the political, following modern common sense, into four elementary aspects – Self, Action, Idea and People – and shows how each element is structured around a conceptual instability, rendering its very elementary status questionable. The political subject is split by the tension between renunciation and realpolitik; action driven by the dialectic between labor and karma, each with its distinctive means-end configuration; the idea torn by its troubled relationships with the economic and the spiritual; and the people forever oscillating between being pure structure, as in the political party, and being pure fiction. Through this account, the book argues that the modern political works by virtue not of any irreducible principle or autonomous logic, a priori identifiable as political, but an unceasing process of differentiation of the political from the non-political – variously imagined at various times as science, religion, society, economics and aesthetics – as also through a simultaneous grounding and delimitation of the political by the specter of the extra-political. The book invites us to go beyond postcolonial and decolonial criticism and engage in the positive and creative task of producing new political theory, inspired by histories and practices from the non-European world. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Prathama Banerjee's book Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South (Duke UP, 2020) studies the rise of modern politics in India, between the mid-19th and the mid-20thcenturies, at the cusp of colonial modern, classical Indian, Indo-Persian and regional vernacular ideas. It unpacks the political, following modern common sense, into four elementary aspects – Self, Action, Idea and People – and shows how each element is structured around a conceptual instability, rendering its very elementary status questionable. The political subject is split by the tension between renunciation and realpolitik; action driven by the dialectic between labor and karma, each with its distinctive means-end configuration; the idea torn by its troubled relationships with the economic and the spiritual; and the people forever oscillating between being pure structure, as in the political party, and being pure fiction. Through this account, the book argues that the modern political works by virtue not of any irreducible principle or autonomous logic, a priori identifiable as political, but an unceasing process of differentiation of the political from the non-political – variously imagined at various times as science, religion, society, economics and aesthetics – as also through a simultaneous grounding and delimitation of the political by the specter of the extra-political. The book invites us to go beyond postcolonial and decolonial criticism and engage in the positive and creative task of producing new political theory, inspired by histories and practices from the non-European world. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Prathama Banerjee's book Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South (Duke UP, 2020) studies the rise of modern politics in India, between the mid-19th and the mid-20thcenturies, at the cusp of colonial modern, classical Indian, Indo-Persian and regional vernacular ideas. It unpacks the political, following modern common sense, into four elementary aspects – Self, Action, Idea and People – and shows how each element is structured around a conceptual instability, rendering its very elementary status questionable. The political subject is split by the tension between renunciation and realpolitik; action driven by the dialectic between labor and karma, each with its distinctive means-end configuration; the idea torn by its troubled relationships with the economic and the spiritual; and the people forever oscillating between being pure structure, as in the political party, and being pure fiction. Through this account, the book argues that the modern political works by virtue not of any irreducible principle or autonomous logic, a priori identifiable as political, but an unceasing process of differentiation of the political from the non-political – variously imagined at various times as science, religion, society, economics and aesthetics – as also through a simultaneous grounding and delimitation of the political by the specter of the extra-political. The book invites us to go beyond postcolonial and decolonial criticism and engage in the positive and creative task of producing new political theory, inspired by histories and practices from the non-European world. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Prathama Banerjee's book Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South (Duke UP, 2020) studies the rise of modern politics in India, between the mid-19th and the mid-20thcenturies, at the cusp of colonial modern, classical Indian, Indo-Persian and regional vernacular ideas. It unpacks the political, following modern common sense, into four elementary aspects – Self, Action, Idea and People – and shows how each element is structured around a conceptual instability, rendering its very elementary status questionable. The political subject is split by the tension between renunciation and realpolitik; action driven by the dialectic between labor and karma, each with its distinctive means-end configuration; the idea torn by its troubled relationships with the economic and the spiritual; and the people forever oscillating between being pure structure, as in the political party, and being pure fiction. Through this account, the book argues that the modern political works by virtue not of any irreducible principle or autonomous logic, a priori identifiable as political, but an unceasing process of differentiation of the political from the non-political – variously imagined at various times as science, religion, society, economics and aesthetics – as also through a simultaneous grounding and delimitation of the political by the specter of the extra-political. The book invites us to go beyond postcolonial and decolonial criticism and engage in the positive and creative task of producing new political theory, inspired by histories and practices from the non-European world. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Episode 59 features Hiba Schahbaz. Born in Karachi, Pakistan she is a Brooklyn-based figurative painter who works primarily with paper, black-tea, and water-based pigments. Her subjects, largely drawn from her lifelong practice of self-portraiture, inhabit a dreamlike, all-female world. Schahbaz initially trained in Indo-Persian miniature painting at Lahore’s National College of Arts, and later earned a Master’s in Painting from Pratt Institute in New York. Her work addresses issues of personal freedom, destruction, sexuality and censorship by unveiling the beauty, fragility and strength of the female form. Her solo shows include Dreaming (De Buck Gallery 2020) In Solitude (De Buck Gallery, 2020), The Garden (Spring/ Break Art Show, 2018), Hiba Schahbaz: Self-Portraits (Project for Empty Space, 2017), Hanged With Roses (Thierry Goldberg Gallery, 2015), and In Memory (Noire Gallery, 2012). Schahbaz has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including a recent show curated by Jasmine Wahi in Tokyo, “all the women. in me. are tired.”, at THE CLUB, as well as exhibitions at NiU Museum of Art, The Untitled Space, and Center for Book Arts; and has shown at art fairs such as Pulse Art Fair, Untitled Art Fair, Art Fair Cologne, and Vienna Fair. Her work has been written about in Vice, Hyperallergic, The Huffington Post, Coveteur, Vogue, NY Magazine, Art Critical, ArtForum, Bomb Mag, Paper, and others. Schahbaz has curated painting exhibitions in Pakistan and India, and she was an artist-in-residence at Mass MoCA, The Wassaic Project, Vermont Studio Center, and the Alfred Z. Solomon Residency at the Tang Museum. She teaches miniature painting at the Art Students League in New York, and her work is held in private collections around the world. —adapted from De Buck Gallery press release, 2020 'In My Heart'. Rockefeller Center. Art Production Fund. Thru May 1st, 2021 Headshot credit: Louise Kim_Edited ARTIST WEBSITE http://www.hibaschahbaz.com/ ART PRODUCTION FUND http://www.artproductionfund.org/projects/hiba-schahbaz-at-rockefeller-center WHITEWALL https://whitewall.art/art/hiba-schahbazs-in-my-heart-in-the-heart-of-nyc HYPERALLERGIC https://hyperallergic.com/591100/hiba-schahbaz-dreaming-debuck-gallery/ BOMB MAGAZINE https://bombmagazine.org/articles/hiba-schahbaz-studio-visit/ DEBUCK GALLERYhttps://www.debuckgallery.com/exhibitions/hiba-schahbaz-dreaming/ COEUR & ART https://coeuretart.com/hiba-schahbaz/ EAZEL https://eazel.net/magazine/100

Author Ana Lal Din joins me to talk about her debut novel, “The Descent of the Drowned,” available on March 15 through White Tigress Press. This story takes elements of Ana's background, and is set in a Indo-Persian world with aspects of Pre-Islamic Arabian mythology.   The book focuses on Roma and Leviathan, two characters who could not be more different. Fate has other plans, however, and puts them on a quest to find an ancient treasure that will doom humankind should it fall into the wrong hands. She talks about both characters, one of whom struggles with a mental illness. It's something that Ana is very familiar with, having worked for years with her own mental health issues.   We also look at the art of the story, both on the book's cover and some amazing creations done by adamar.art on Instagram. Ana also gives some hints at future projects.

In this edition of The Hindu on Books Podcast, we talk to Audrey Truschke about her new book, The Language of History, in which she explains why Sanskrit histories of Indo-Muslim rule, ought to be acknowledged as crucial to the study of Indo-Persian political history. Truschke, who wrote a biography of the Mughal king Aurangzeb in 2017 for which she received both kudos and brickbats, takes us through cultural encounters through the ages, the importance of history, and her new project. Host: Sudipta Dutta, Senior Deputy Editor, The Hindu Want to get more from The Hindu on books? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here (Newsletter Subscription) Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

Dr. Céline Ventura Teixeira shines light on the fusion of Eastern motifs and European iconography, in a set of azulejos – or decorative tiles - produced for a church altar in 17th century imperial Portugal. Azulejos – or decorative tiles – were the crowning glory of Portugal's church altars. Known as ‘ceramic carpets', they borrowed motifs from Indo-Persian and Oriental textiles, which flooded Lisbon's markets with the expansion of the Portuguese Empire. More than mere mimics, the Portuguese tile-makers reinterpreted these symbols in line with existing European religious traditions. From pagodas to the camellia Japonica, these tiles fuse Oriental ornaments and European iconography, revealing a global network of associations. PRESENTER: Dr. Céline Ventura Teixeira, associate professor of Modern Art History at Aix-Marseille Université. ART: Frontal of a Three-Section Altar, Carmelite Convent in the Coimbra Region (17th Century). IMAGE: ‘Frontal of a Three-Section Altar'. SOUNDS: TRG Banks. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

How did Muslims encounter and interpret other cultures before the modern era of globalization? To answer this question, we turn to the testimony of one of the great genres of Muslim literature: the travelogue. In this podcast, we’ll rove around the Bay of Bengal, where the Persian lingua franca promoted by the Mughal then British empires became the intermediary language between Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists finally Christian Britons. Poring through unpublished manuscripts, we’ll ask what these Indo-Persian – and ‘Anglo-Persian’ – travelogues can tell us about the ways in which Muslims have understood and interacted with other cultures. Nile Green talks to Arash Khazeni, the author of The City and the Wilderness: Indo-Persian Encounters in Southeast Asia (University of California Press, 2020).

Episode 442 with Sunil Sharma hosted by Shireen Hamza and Naveena NaqviDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudIn this episode, Professor Sunil Sharma shares his research on the cast of poets who wrote Persian poetry in India, and the poetic idea of Mughal India as a paradise, or an “Arcadia.” (He also shares some excerpts of this lovely poetry with us!) We discuss how specific regions, like Kashmir, became a hot new topic in Persian poetry, and explore the kinds of competitions that emerged between poets from different places across a broader “Persianate” world. The courtly environments in which these poets found patronage were multilingual and multiracial environments — where someone could enjoy poetry in Persian, Braj Bhasha, Hindavi and Chaghatai Turkish — but in this time, Persian poetry was what got you a job. By studying both poetry and painting, he reflects on the racial differences mentioned by poets, especially the initial difference between those born in India and those who had migrated from Iran and were “native speakers” of Persian. Finally, we discuss different meanings of the term “Indo-Persian,” in the study of the centuries that Persian was used as a language of governance, literature and science in India. « Click for More »

Episode 442 with Sunil Sharma hosted by Shireen Hamza and Naveena NaqviDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudIn this episode, Professor Sunil Sharma shares his research on the cast of poets who wrote Persian poetry in India, and the poetic idea of Mughal India as a paradise, or an “Arcadia.” (He also shares some excerpts of this lovely poetry with us!) We discuss how specific regions, like Kashmir, became a hot new topic in Persian poetry, and explore the kinds of competitions that emerged between poets from different places across a broader “Persianate” world. The courtly environments in which these poets found patronage were multilingual and multiracial environments — where someone could enjoy poetry in Persian, Braj Bhasha, Hindavi and Chaghatai Turkish — but in this time, Persian poetry was what got you a job. By studying both poetry and painting, he reflects on the racial differences mentioned by poets, especially the initial difference between those born in India and those who had migrated from Iran and were “native speakers” of Persian. Finally, we discuss different meanings of the term “Indo-Persian,” in the study of the centuries that Persian was used as a language of governance, literature and science in India. « Click for More »

This week, Gilly Smith meets 2017 Masterchef winner and junior doctor, Saliha Mahmood Ahmed whose new book Khazana – meaning treasure trove - is a journey of discovery into the Mughal Empire which inspires the Indo-Persian recipes in the book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Renaissance and Reformation               Spanish and Portuguese Empires: get out of my ocean   Gabe The Spanish and Portuguese are kind of the start to a lot of global trade but more so the Portuguese empire because they were more interested in trade then acquiring land and so what they would do is set up these things called factories which were a lot like warehouses for trading outposts and they set these up along there trade route which went from portugal all the way to the bottom of africa and back up to japan which was the route vasco da gama created and they found that the chinese wanted silver to reinforce there paper money and they saw this as a great trade opportunity and they would go and trade china's goods of basically anything for silver from japan to china   Ben - During the Spanish golden age, are and literature flourished. This was also during the Italian Renaissance, around the year 1492. The same year that Christopher Columbus discovered America. A famous European artist of this time was Diego Velázquez. He made various works for the royals of Spain that showcased his immense skill in talent.   Ella - In America, people often worked on plantations and in mines. The work they did was really harsh and difficult that sometimes people would die doing it.  But it resulted in a large increase in production. And with that came the need for more labor so they began to use enslaved africans which brought West Africa into these trading networks and relationships with the spanish and portuguese.   Audrey -  In 1598 a fleet of Dutch ships left the Netherlands to trade. A sailor aboard one of these ships was an Englishman named William Adams. The fleet sailed down the coast of Africa and made a stop off the coast of West Africa to trade, and this was very common for the European ships at the time. When they left there they sailed around South America ending up off the coast of Peru. At this point William Adams began keeping a journal and it says “It was agreed that we should leave the coast of Peru and direct our course for Japan. Having understood that cloth was good merchandise there and also how upon that coast of Peru the king’s ships were out seeking us.” The king that Adams was referring to was the king of Spain and this worried the fleet because Peru was a Spanish colony at the time and Spain and the Netherlands were at war. This just shows how interconnected the economy was at the time with how they new where a place was how to get there and what items would be beneficial to trade there. (Sorry its so long) Emma - Prior to the beginning of the African slave trade, certain areas in Africa already held an important role in the Renaissance era global economy. West Africa in particular, played a part in the Spanish and Portuguese trade of items such as gold and ivory, as well as some spices. All of these items were highly desired by people of many cultures and were seen as symbols of wealth and luxury.   Skylar - William Adams sailed from West Africa to Peru, to Japan. When they arrived in Japan the Emperor put Adams in prison. These Portuguese Priests were in Japan and were trying to get the emperor to agree to let William Adams out of prison. Finally the Emperor agreed and said he would trade with him, but he had to help his army build ships.   Ethan- In Brazil their economic power comes from their sugar plantations towards the north. This changed when they struck gold in 1693. This was found inward on Brazil in the region of Minas Gerais.  Them finding gold triggered the Americans desire to find gold in America. This struck down Brazil’s financial status for most of the 18th century. Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment: Gabe - The Scientific Revolution started around the early 1500s when copernicus says hey what if we aren't the center of attention what if the sun and we are revolving around it and not it around us which questions everything they believed and this kind of ended around the late 1600s when newton publishes the principia which describes our universe and around this time people began to question old beliefs that had been around since forever which began the Age of Enlightenment Ben - The Age of Enlightenment was also called the Age of Reason. Historians from France usually place this period at around 1715, but other historians from around the world think it happened in around 1620. Corresponding with the scientific revolution. Ella - The reasons the Enlightenment started was not only because we had new tools of thinking but that it was almost a responsibility of the society now that they had scientific information that they could apply to there current information. Audrey - The Age of Enlightenment was a very philosophical time when people really started questioning their rights and their obligations especially considering their social status, like why this person had the right to rule why others had to be slaves and why the upper class could own them.   Emma - During this new philosophical era, many “modern” philosophers began to emerge. One of these was John Locke, the writer of the Second Treatise Concerning Civil Government. This document expressed his beliefs on how people should treat one anGovernmentother. For example, one passage said this; “...when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.” This kind of thinking was growing larger in popularity during this time.   Ethan- The Scientific Revolution with things like the heliocentric theory that we use today. This was the first theory that said the universe revolved around something other than the Earth. The barometer was also invented during this time. The bifocal lens was also a great invention because it let people have the ability to see both far and near.7. Skylar - im going to talk about Thomas Hobbes. Thomas was a english writer, who was inspired by experimental attitude toward nature and decided to apply it to politics.  In 1651 he wrote Leviathan, a title he chose after the sea monster from the Book of Job. Thomas thought that humans in their original state of nature were unhappy. He supported an absolute monarch government, but didn’t support the Divine Right theory government. He didn’t support that kind of government because he believed that you need protection from yourself.   Mughal rule in India:   Gabe - The Mughal Rule Starts in Samarkand around early 1500s which babur who is Timur's great grandsons grandson tries taking and fails and he tries to take Fergana and fails and he does this a couple times before he goes to Kabul and conquers it in the early 1600s which after taking Kabul he starts focusing on more India then he does Asia and he even later on defeated Ibrahim Lodi at Delhi taking control over northern india.    Ella - One of the rulers Humayun had trouble retaining power because of multiple family rivalries. Eventually the Pashtun Suri dynasty dethrones him. He was able to regain control for a while with the help from the safavids but unfortunately tripped on a staircase and died.   Audrey - Shah Jahan was the son of Jahangir therefor Akbar’s grandson and he lived from 1592-1666 AD. Where both Akbar and Jahangir were said to be very tolerant rulers Shah Jahan was known to be considerably less tolerant. His rule was known as the golden age of Mughal architecture one of his greatest structures being the Taj Mahal. It was built in the 1630’s in Agra which at some point was the capitol. Shah Jahan had the Taj Mahal built as a home for the body of his wife who had died just before.   Emma - The Mughal Empire was an example of an Indo-Persian culture, a combination of both the Indian and Persian cultures of the surrounding areas. Examples of this can be seen in art and architecture of the time period which showed influences from both of these distinct cultures.   Ethan- The Mughal Empire was the 3rd largest empire on the Indian subcontinent to ever exist, alongside the British Indian Empire and the Maurya Empire. This empire expanded 4 million square kilometers.  The largest expansion of this empire was when Aurangzeb ruled, with over 150 million subjects.   Skylar - In 1483 Babur is born, who becomes the leader of Fergana at age 12. He tries to take over multiple different places, and never won. Finally in the early 16th century he is able to take control over Kabul. When akbar became the leader he was able to add quite a bit more territory to the Mughal empire.   Sikhism:  Gabe - Sikhism starts in punjab around the time that the Mughals are coming into power with a man named guru Nanak and his followers are called sikhs which is from the sanskrit word sikh which means to learn Ella - Eventually The Sikhs have a large increase in following from Hindus and Muslims. Jahangir becomes threatened by them so he decides to imprison and torture Guru Arjan in an attempt to make him convert to Islam. Despite being boiled and tortured he would not consent and he eventually died.kicking in the basement guess who Audrey - Guru Arjan played an important part in Sikhism with the making of the Adi Granth which is a compilation of the sayings and hymns from previous gurus including his own so essentially the holy book of Sikhism. Guru Arjan also built the Harmandir Sahib in Ramdaspur a place later known as Amritsar which was intended as a place of worship for people of all religions and they had the tradition of Langar where they would feed anyone from any faith. The Harmandir Sahib would later be known as the Golden Temple after Raja had it plated with gold and it is now the largest free kitchen in the world. Skylar - The Sikhism is started in the 15th century by Guru Nanak. Guru was born into a merchant class Hindu family, he was precocious especially when talking about spirituality, meaning he was extremely religious. Emma - The Bhakti Movement of the Mughal Empire was a major influence of the development of Sikhism. The Bhakti Movement was a theistic that originated from Hinduism in Medieval times. However, it was not a direct branch from the movement. Ethan- All Sikh believe that faith and meditation are essentials in their lives. They also believe in divine unity and equality of humankind. Now there are close to 25 million Sikhs worldwide and many of them have stayed in Punjab. The last guru was Guru Gobind Singh and named the Sikhs scripture Guru Granth Sahib. 7. The Protestant Reformation: Ella -  Pope Leo X wanted to rebuild Saint Peter's Basilica which given to Peter from Christ himself. The cost to rebuild it was very high because it was one of the greatest architectural structures of the time. They planned to afford it by selling indulgences or pieces of paper that supposedly helped you get into heaven faster.  Gabe - The Protestant Reformation is when the church went from just the Roman Catholic church too methodist, baptist, lutheran, congregationalist, and presbyterian churches these were some of the churches that came out of the Protestant Reformation Audrey - Martin Luther, who was a German monk and a professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg, was tired of people saying since they bought indulgences, which were pieces of paper that could supposedly get you to Heaven quicker, they were freed of all their sins. As a monk Martin Luther did not like the idea of people trying to take the easy way out by buying their way to Heaven so he wrote a series of arguments on the issues of selling indulgences better known as the 95 Theses and it is said that he nailed it to the doors of the castle church in Wittenberg. Skylar - The protestant reformation started in 1517. The reformation started by Martin Luther. Then later on other leaders were Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin. The Protestant Reformation lasted until the end of the Thirty Years war, which ended in 1648. Emma - The reformation was a distinct change from the practices and beliefs of the  Catholic Church. They very much believed that your actions impacted if and when you got to Heaven. This was what martin Luther was addressing with his writings, saying that the sinful nature was unavoidable and that faith alone can save us. Ethan- The Reformation ended around the time of the end of the 30 years war. The war ended in 1648. By this time the society of Western Christianity had split into many different “churches” like Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican, just to name a few. 7.   The Russian Empire - Ella - Modern day Sweden was once the home of the Vikings. They would travel around Western Europe by sea and attack and steal from towns on the coast. The Vikings were also known for their trading. There were many water routes from Sweden to common trading countries such as Baghdad and Constantinople. Large amounts of viking jewelry was found along these rivers. Gabe - The Russian empire began with the varangians which were vikings being pushed back to Sweden but there was chaos in the northern slav area and it is said that they went to the varangians and asked them to rule over them because there is no order and so 3 people were pick Rurik being the oldest settles in Novograd and calls the land Rus which many people believe is where the word Russia comes from and on his death Rurik appoints Oleg as his successor and Oleg settles in Kiev expanding Rus to Kiev Rus Skylar - The Russian Empire was officially proclaimed by Tsar Peter I, (the first, skylar do NOT say 1)following the Treaty of Nystad, which was in 1721. The Russian Empire was strong and alive well before that though, 1478 is when most believe in was truly established. The Russian Empire is the third largest in the world. It contains three different continents. Sometimes the Russian Empire is also known as Imperial Russia. Audrey - The word Rus is thought by most historians to be the origin of the word Russia. But where did the word Rus come from? Historians have come up with many answers for this question. Some believe that the word Rus came from the name of Sweden at the time since that’s where Rus was, and some think the the Rus were a group of vikings. Emma - The inhabitants of the Land of Rus are said to have come from two groups of people that resided in what is now Russia. These two groups were the Eastern Slavs and the Varangians. However, there were many other groups of Slavs that made up the other nations that now exist in the area. Ethan- The Russian Empire lasted from 1721-1917. The Empire took up 14 million square miles and was ruled autocratically. It had over 170 million people and 100 different backgrounds. The capital of the Russian Empire is St Petersburg. Most of the population consisted of serfs until 1861 when Alexander II set them free. This Emancipation did not change the conditions for the peasant populus.

Renaissance and Reformation               Spanish and Portuguese Empires: get out of my ocean   Gabe The Spanish and Portuguese are kind of the start to a lot of global trade but more so the Portuguese empire because they were more interested in trade then acquiring land and so what they would do is set up these things called factories which were a lot like warehouses for trading outposts and they set these up along there trade route which went from portugal all the way to the bottom of africa and back up to japan which was the route vasco da gama created and they found that the chinese wanted silver to reinforce there paper money and they saw this as a great trade opportunity and they would go and trade china's goods of basically anything for silver from japan to china   Ben - During the Spanish golden age, are and literature flourished. This was also during the Italian Renaissance, around the year 1492. The same year that Christopher Columbus discovered America. A famous European artist of this time was Diego Velázquez. He made various works for the royals of Spain that showcased his immense skill in talent.   Ella - In America, people often worked on plantations and in mines. The work they did was really harsh and difficult that sometimes people would die doing it.  But it resulted in a large increase in production. And with that came the need for more labor so they began to use enslaved africans which brought West Africa into these trading networks and relationships with the spanish and portuguese.   Audrey -  In 1598 a fleet of Dutch ships left the Netherlands to trade. A sailor aboard one of these ships was an Englishman named William Adams. The fleet sailed down the coast of Africa and made a stop off the coast of West Africa to trade, and this was very common for the European ships at the time. When they left there they sailed around South America ending up off the coast of Peru. At this point William Adams began keeping a journal and it says “It was agreed that we should leave the coast of Peru and direct our course for Japan. Having understood that cloth was good merchandise there and also how upon that coast of Peru the king’s ships were out seeking us.” The king that Adams was referring to was the king of Spain and this worried the fleet because Peru was a Spanish colony at the time and Spain and the Netherlands were at war. This just shows how interconnected the economy was at the time with how they new where a place was how to get there and what items would be beneficial to trade there. (Sorry its so long) Emma - Prior to the beginning of the African slave trade, certain areas in Africa already held an important role in the Renaissance era global economy. West Africa in particular, played a part in the Spanish and Portuguese trade of items such as gold and ivory, as well as some spices. All of these items were highly desired by people of many cultures and were seen as symbols of wealth and luxury.   Skylar - William Adams sailed from West Africa to Peru, to Japan. When they arrived in Japan the Emperor put Adams in prison. These Portuguese Priests were in Japan and were trying to get the emperor to agree to let William Adams out of prison. Finally the Emperor agreed and said he would trade with him, but he had to help his army build ships.   Ethan- In Brazil their economic power comes from their sugar plantations towards the north. This changed when they struck gold in 1693. This was found inward on Brazil in the region of Minas Gerais.  Them finding gold triggered the Americans desire to find gold in America. This struck down Brazil’s financial status for most of the 18th century. Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment: Gabe - The Scientific Revolution started around the early 1500s when copernicus says hey what if we aren't the center of attention what if the sun and we are revolving around it and not it around us which questions everything they believed and this kind of ended around the late 1600s when newton publishes the principia which describes our universe and around this time people began to question old beliefs that had been around since forever which began the Age of Enlightenment Ben - The Age of Enlightenment was also called the Age of Reason. Historians from France usually place this period at around 1715, but other historians from around the world think it happened in around 1620. Corresponding with the scientific revolution. Ella - The reasons the Enlightenment started was not only because we had new tools of thinking but that it was almost a responsibility of the society now that they had scientific information that they could apply to there current information. Audrey - The Age of Enlightenment was a very philosophical time when people really started questioning their rights and their obligations especially considering their social status, like why this person had the right to rule why others had to be slaves and why the upper class could own them.   Emma - During this new philosophical era, many “modern” philosophers began to emerge. One of these was John Locke, the writer of the Second Treatise Concerning Civil Government. This document expressed his beliefs on how people should treat one anGovernmentother. For example, one passage said this; “...when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.” This kind of thinking was growing larger in popularity during this time.   Ethan- The Scientific Revolution with things like the heliocentric theory that we use today. This was the first theory that said the universe revolved around something other than the Earth. The barometer was also invented during this time. The bifocal lens was also a great invention because it let people have the ability to see both far and near.7. Skylar - im going to talk about Thomas Hobbes. Thomas was a english writer, who was inspired by experimental attitude toward nature and decided to apply it to politics.  In 1651 he wrote Leviathan, a title he chose after the sea monster from the Book of Job. Thomas thought that humans in their original state of nature were unhappy. He supported an absolute monarch government, but didn’t support the Divine Right theory government. He didn’t support that kind of government because he believed that you need protection from yourself.   Mughal rule in India:   Gabe - The Mughal Rule Starts in Samarkand around early 1500s which babur who is Timur's great grandsons grandson tries taking and fails and he tries to take Fergana and fails and he does this a couple times before he goes to Kabul and conquers it in the early 1600s which after taking Kabul he starts focusing on more India then he does Asia and he even later on defeated Ibrahim Lodi at Delhi taking control over northern india.    Ella - One of the rulers Humayun had trouble retaining power because of multiple family rivalries. Eventually the Pashtun Suri dynasty dethrones him. He was able to regain control for a while with the help from the safavids but unfortunately tripped on a staircase and died.   Audrey - Shah Jahan was the son of Jahangir therefor Akbar’s grandson and he lived from 1592-1666 AD. Where both Akbar and Jahangir were said to be very tolerant rulers Shah Jahan was known to be considerably less tolerant. His rule was known as the golden age of Mughal architecture one of his greatest structures being the Taj Mahal. It was built in the 1630’s in Agra which at some point was the capitol. Shah Jahan had the Taj Mahal built as a home for the body of his wife who had died just before.   Emma - The Mughal Empire was an example of an Indo-Persian culture, a combination of both the Indian and Persian cultures of the surrounding areas. Examples of this can be seen in art and architecture of the time period which showed influences from both of these distinct cultures.   Ethan- The Mughal Empire was the 3rd largest empire on the Indian subcontinent to ever exist, alongside the British Indian Empire and the Maurya Empire. This empire expanded 4 million square kilometers.  The largest expansion of this empire was when Aurangzeb ruled, with over 150 million subjects.   Skylar - In 1483 Babur is born, who becomes the leader of Fergana at age 12. He tries to take over multiple different places, and never won. Finally in the early 16th century he is able to take control over Kabul. When akbar became the leader he was able to add quite a bit more territory to the Mughal empire.   Sikhism:  Gabe - Sikhism starts in punjab around the time that the Mughals are coming into power with a man named guru Nanak and his followers are called sikhs which is from the sanskrit word sikh which means to learn Ella - Eventually The Sikhs have a large increase in following from Hindus and Muslims. Jahangir becomes threatened by them so he decides to imprison and torture Guru Arjan in an attempt to make him convert to Islam. Despite being boiled and tortured he would not consent and he eventually died.kicking in the basement guess who Audrey - Guru Arjan played an important part in Sikhism with the making of the Adi Granth which is a compilation of the sayings and hymns from previous gurus including his own so essentially the holy book of Sikhism. Guru Arjan also built the Harmandir Sahib in Ramdaspur a place later known as Amritsar which was intended as a place of worship for people of all religions and they had the tradition of Langar where they would feed anyone from any faith. The Harmandir Sahib would later be known as the Golden Temple after Raja had it plated with gold and it is now the largest free kitchen in the world. Skylar - The Sikhism is started in the 15th century by Guru Nanak. Guru was born into a merchant class Hindu family, he was precocious especially when talking about spirituality, meaning he was extremely religious. Emma - The Bhakti Movement of the Mughal Empire was a major influence of the development of Sikhism. The Bhakti Movement was a theistic that originated from Hinduism in Medieval times. However, it was not a direct branch from the movement. Ethan- All Sikh believe that faith and meditation are essentials in their lives. They also believe in divine unity and equality of humankind. Now there are close to 25 million Sikhs worldwide and many of them have stayed in Punjab. The last guru was Guru Gobind Singh and named the Sikhs scripture Guru Granth Sahib. 7. The Protestant Reformation: Ella -  Pope Leo X wanted to rebuild Saint Peter's Basilica which given to Peter from Christ himself. The cost to rebuild it was very high because it was one of the greatest architectural structures of the time. They planned to afford it by selling indulgences or pieces of paper that supposedly helped you get into heaven faster.  Gabe - The Protestant Reformation is when the church went from just the Roman Catholic church too methodist, baptist, lutheran, congregationalist, and presbyterian churches these were some of the churches that came out of the Protestant Reformation Audrey - Martin Luther, who was a German monk and a professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg, was tired of people saying since they bought indulgences, which were pieces of paper that could supposedly get you to Heaven quicker, they were freed of all their sins. As a monk Martin Luther did not like the idea of people trying to take the easy way out by buying their way to Heaven so he wrote a series of arguments on the issues of selling indulgences better known as the 95 Theses and it is said that he nailed it to the doors of the castle church in Wittenberg. Skylar - The protestant reformation started in 1517. The reformation started by Martin Luther. Then later on other leaders were Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin. The Protestant Reformation lasted until the end of the Thirty Years war, which ended in 1648. Emma - The reformation was a distinct change from the practices and beliefs of the  Catholic Church. They very much believed that your actions impacted if and when you got to Heaven. This was what martin Luther was addressing with his writings, saying that the sinful nature was unavoidable and that faith alone can save us. Ethan- The Reformation ended around the time of the end of the 30 years war. The war ended in 1648. By this time the society of Western Christianity had split into many different “churches” like Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican, just to name a few. 7.   The Russian Empire - Ella - Modern day Sweden was once the home of the Vikings. They would travel around Western Europe by sea and attack and steal from towns on the coast. The Vikings were also known for their trading. There were many water routes from Sweden to common trading countries such as Baghdad and Constantinople. Large amounts of viking jewelry was found along these rivers. Gabe - The Russian empire began with the varangians which were vikings being pushed back to Sweden but there was chaos in the northern slav area and it is said that they went to the varangians and asked them to rule over them because there is no order and so 3 people were pick Rurik being the oldest settles in Novograd and calls the land Rus which many people believe is where the word Russia comes from and on his death Rurik appoints Oleg as his successor and Oleg settles in Kiev expanding Rus to Kiev Rus Skylar - The Russian Empire was officially proclaimed by Tsar Peter I, (the first, skylar do NOT say 1)following the Treaty of Nystad, which was in 1721. The Russian Empire was strong and alive well before that though, 1478 is when most believe in was truly established. The Russian Empire is the third largest in the world. It contains three different continents. Sometimes the Russian Empire is also known as Imperial Russia. Audrey - The word Rus is thought by most historians to be the origin of the word Russia. But where did the word Rus come from? Historians have come up with many answers for this question. Some believe that the word Rus came from the name of Sweden at the time since that’s where Rus was, and some think the the Rus were a group of vikings. Emma - The inhabitants of the Land of Rus are said to have come from two groups of people that resided in what is now Russia. These two groups were the Eastern Slavs and the Varangians. However, there were many other groups of Slavs that made up the other nations that now exist in the area. Ethan- The Russian Empire lasted from 1721-1917. The Empire took up 14 million square miles and was ruled autocratically. It had over 170 million people and 100 different backgrounds. The capital of the Russian Empire is St Petersburg. Most of the population consisted of serfs until 1861 when Alexander II set them free. This Emancipation did not change the conditions for the peasant populus.

In our penultimate episode we discuss the Indo-Persian world and the establishment of the Mughal Dynasty. We talk about the particular expression of Islam that flourishes in South Asia and how it is shaped by the religions of the region. We explore the ecstatic or “drunken” Sufism of poetry and music, with special attention payed...

You are now in one of the most valuable rooms in the palace, known as the Millions Room. It owes its name to the wall panelling made of an extremely rare type of rosewood into which are set Indo-Persian miniatures. Depicting scenes from the private and court life of the Mogul rulers in 16th-century India, they were cut up by members of the imperial family and reassembled to form new images in a sort of collage. The Millions Room also features a typical example of the playful spirit of the Baroque age, when optical illusions were very popular: crystal mirrors are hung on both sides of the room, reflecting one another and creating the illusion of infinite space. www.schoenbrunn.at | Download Tour-Guide (PDF)© by Schloß Schönbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges.m.b.H.