Asian Studies Centre

Oxford University
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Asian Studies Centre

The Asian Studies Centre was founded in 1982 at St Antony's College and is primarily a co-ordinating organisation which exists to bring together specialists from a wide variety of different disciplines. Geographically, the Centre predominantly covers South, Southeast and East Asia. The Asian Studies Centre works closely with scholars in the Oriental Institute, the Oxford China Centre, the Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme and the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies (in premises at St Antony's). The Asian Studies Centre is host to the Taiwan Studies Programme, Modern Burmese Studies Programme, the South Asian History Seminar Series and the Southeast Asian Studies Seminar Series.

  1. AUG 23

    Dr Shailendra Bhandare on the Ashmolean Museum’s South Asian coin collections

    Shreya Gupta interviews Dr Shailendra Bhandare, Curator of South Asian and Far-eastern Coins and Paper Money at the Ashmolean Museum Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    41 min

  2. AUG 20

    Jan Lingen, President of the Royal Dutch Numismatic Society, on collecting South Asian Coins

    Shreya Gupta interviews Indian coin expert Jan Lingen on his collection. In this interview Jan Lingen recounts his story of coming to India in his architectural role and developing an interest in Indian coins and studying Indian languages. He talks about the people he met with and worked with on his coin collecting journey and his continuing work with Indian coins in the Netherlands. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    52 min

  3. JUL 31

    Interview with Robert Bracey on South Asian Coin Collections in the British Museum by Shreya Gupta

    This interview discusses the afterlives of coin collections from South Asia held in UK museums today. In this interview, Robert Bracey speaks about his past and ongoing work at the British Museum as the current Curator of Asian Numismatics. He talks about some of the research being conducted on the museum’s South Asian coins, particularly on the Kushan coin collection. The speakers discuss the services provided for visitors and scholars to the British Museum including the Study Room and Collections Online, and attempt to understand the lives of these coins inside the British Museum after they have made their journey from South Asia to the UK. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    1h 27m

  4. JUL 31

    Interview with Dr Paul Stevens on collecting Indian coins by Shreya Gupta

    This interview discusses Paul Steven’s journey of collecting and researching Indian coins In this interview Dr Paul Stevens recounts his story of getting interested in collecting Indian coins and his journey of building his collection. He talks about the books he has authored, 'The Coins of the English East India Company: Presidency Series - A Catalogue and Pricelist' (Spink, 2017), and with Randy Weir, 'The Uniform Coinage of India 1835 to 1947: A Catalogue and Pricelist' (Spink, 2012). Finally, he discusses his idea and motivation and current work in building an online database of Indian coins, http://psindiancoins.com Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    38 min

  5. 10/26/2023

    Pakistan & India: Common Origins, Divergent Trajectories

    Pervez Hoodbhoy seminar given as part of the Modern South Asian Seminar series in October 2023 What had been a relatively small gap in 1947 between Pakistan and India is turning into an ever widening chasm. Given the common origins of these two countries what essential differences led to the present situation? Or were the trajectories predetermined? After discussing historical similarities and differences, I will explore whether Pakistan can now choose a different future for itself. Pervez Hoodbhoy taught physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad (1973–2021) as well as other Pakistani universities for nearly five decades. He was visiting professor at MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Maryland, and a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Washington. His book “Islam and Science – Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality” was translated into 8 languages.

    31 min

  6. 06/16/2023

    Along The Path To Gandhi's Neighbor

    Ajay Skaria - University of Minnesota, speaks at the Oxford South Asian Intellectual History Seminar on 1 May 2023. The figures of the neighbor and friend are ubiquitous in Gandhi’s writings. While he himself assumes he is only reaffirming old figures, something truly radical happens in his writings (as in those of his sharpest critic, Ambedkar). Both write at a time when a modern commandment, so to speak, exemplified in the categorical imperative, is displacing the Biblical and other analogous commandments. It is in order to criticize this new commandment that both affirm instead old commandments around neighbor and friend. But in their very questioning, they also borrow from the new commandment a key element—the injunction to equality. By doing so, they inaugurate a new politics—a politics that could be described as democratic neighborliness or political friendship. This talk will trace the conceptual prehistory of this new politics. Ajay Skaria is Professor in the Department of History and Institute for Global Studies at the University of Minnesota. Since the 2000s, his research interests have included twentieth century Indian intellectual history, modern caste politics, and postcolonial theory. In addition to articles in these fields, he is the author of Hybrid Histories: Forests, Frontiers and Wildness in Western India (1999) and Unconditional Equality: Gandhi’s Religion of Resistance (2016). He was a member of the Subaltern Studies editorial collective, and coedited Subaltern Studies Vol XII: Muslims, Dalits and the Fabrications of History (2005). Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    51 min

  7. 05/19/2023

    Pakistan: Political Economy of an Elite Captured State

    Miftah Ismail Pakistan’s former Minister of Finance gives a lecture Many Pakistani colonial institutions such has the bureaucracy, the judiciary and especially the army have evolved into self-perpetuating elite institutions that resist change and seek to maintain the status quo. And over the years they have co-opted politicians, religious leaders, the landed gentry and also large industrial conglomerates and together they have neither pursued inclusive economic growth nor a liberal, tolerant society. Resultantly Pakistan is falling behind all its peer nations in South Asia in income and human development. The economic and political crises today, the worst in Pakistan’s history, offer an opportunity to build a new ruling coalition that will sue for growth, inclusivity and human development. The alternative is a secular decline towards a failed state. Miftah Ismail is Pakistan’s former Minister of Finance. He holds a PhD in Public Finance and Political Economy from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    53 min

  8. 03/23/2023

    Nations Ascendant: Towards a Global Intellectual History of Self Determination

    Zaib un Nisa Aziz (University of South Florida, Tampa) speaks at the Oxford South Asian Intellectual History Seminar on 13 March 2023. For queries, please contact seminar convenor at saih@history.ox.ac.uk At the turn of the twentieth century, the global imperial order was in peril. In cities across the world, revolutionary factions emerged where nationalists deliberated radical, even violent paths to a post- imperial world. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin belonged to and wrote of this world – a world primarily defined by the crisis of the imperial order and the looming question of the future of national communities. As Lenin along with his compatriots seized power in Moscow in October 1917, he announced the dawn of a new era where the empires of the world would eventually fall in the throes of the impending world revolution. My talk, based on my first book project, shows how that his call resonated with all sorts of imperial decriers who saw, in his victory, the possibility of a new world. From Rio Grande to River Ganges, anti-colonialists turned to Moscow to help realize their own political visions. Encouraged by the triumph of Lenin and his party, anti-colonialists tied the end of imperialism to the revolutionary end of global socioeconomic hierarchies. This historical narrative responds to recent scholarly provocations to study decolonization in connected rather than discrete terms and to employ the methodological tools of global history to write new historical accounts, which attend to the ends of empire as a global phenomenon. One of my key intellectual objectives is to think of Asian, African, and Caribbean anti-colonialists not only as itinerant revolutionaries and campaigners but as intellectuals, thinkers, and writers. I demonstrate the many ways in which anti-colonialists interpreted, built on, modified, and otherwise responded to Lenin’s critique of imperialism. For many, anti-imperialism now not only meant opposition to foreign rule but also a wholesale rejection of the prevalent global economic order. Hence, inequality and development became an inextricable part of visions of a postcolonial global order. Moreover, this presentation highlights how the inter-war period marks a decisive shift in the intellectual history of decolonization. Zaib un Nisa Aziz is a historian of global and imperial history, with a focus on the British Empire and Modern South Asia. She is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of South Florida, Tampa. In her past and present research, she seeks to push the geographic, temporal and thematic boundaries of the historical study of the end of empire and its aftermath, and is particularly interested in histories of decolonisation, labour and internationalism. Her current book project, tentatively titled ‘Nations Ascendant: The Global Struggle Against Empire and The Making of our World’, traces the origins and politics of an international community of colonial activists, thinkers and campaigners, and shows how they came to share ideas about universal decolonisation and the end of empires. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    37 min
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About

The Asian Studies Centre was founded in 1982 at St Antony's College and is primarily a co-ordinating organisation which exists to bring together specialists from a wide variety of different disciplines. Geographically, the Centre predominantly covers South, Southeast and East Asia. The Asian Studies Centre works closely with scholars in the Oriental Institute, the Oxford China Centre, the Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme and the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies (in premises at St Antony's). The Asian Studies Centre is host to the Taiwan Studies Programme, Modern Burmese Studies Programme, the South Asian History Seminar Series and the Southeast Asian Studies Seminar Series.

Information

  • Creator
    Oxford University
  • Years Active
    2014 - 2024
  • Episodes
    218
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Oxford University
  • Show Website
    Asian Studies Centre

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