5. Marking Boundaries and Building Bridges: Persian Scholarly Networks in Mughal Punjab

2019 ◽  
pp. 159-174
Keyword(s):  
Scholarly Networks

scholarly journals One World, Many Knowledges: Regional experiences and cross-regional links in higher education

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tar Halvorsen ◽  
Peter Vale
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Knowledge Society ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
University Ranking ◽  
University System ◽  
Nordic Region ◽  
Scholarly Networks ◽  
Research Organisations ◽  
Scholarly Collaboration

Various forms of academic co-operation criss-cross the modern university system in a bewildering number of ways, from the open exchange of ideas and knowledge, to the sharing of research results, and frank discussions about research challenges. Embedded in these scholarly networks is the question of whether a global template for the management of both higher education and national research organisations is necessary, and if so, must institutions slavishly follow the high-flown language of the global knowledge society or risk falling behind in the ubiquitous university ranking system? Or are there alternatives that can achieve a better, more ethically inclined, world? Basing their observations on their own experiences, an interesting mix of seasoned scholars and new voices from southern Africa and the Nordic region offer critical perspectives on issues of inter- and cross-regional academic co-operation. Several of the chapters also touch on the evolution of the higher education sector in the two regions. An absorbing and intelligent study, this book will be invaluable for anyone interested in the strategies scholars are using to adapt to the interconnectedness of the modern world. It offers fresh insights into how academics are attempting to protect the spaces in which they can freely and openly debate the challenges they face, while aiming to transform higher education, and foster scholarly collaboration. The Southern African-Nordic Centre (SANORD) is a partnership of higher education institutions from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. SANORDs primary aim is to promote multilateral research co-operation on matters of importance to the development of both regions. Our activities are based on the values of democracy, equity, and mutually beneficial academic engagement.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Khairudin Aljunied
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Grassroots Activism ◽  
Islamic Reform ◽  
Scholarly Networks

This chapter orients the reader to the importance and relevance Hamka’s ideas on reform in the study of Islam in the Malay world as well as global Islam. It provides a discussion of the book’s conceptual contribution, that is, ‘cosmopolitan reform’, gleaned from Hamka’s long list of writings. The chapter moves to examining Hamka’s intellectual upbringing, grassroots activism and the scholarly networks that he had established. His travels throughout the Malay world and wider Muslim world spurred him to transcend the various intellectual divisions of his time through his prodigious scholarship. From this perspective, this study of Hamka’s cosmopolitan reform in Southeast Asia serves as a basis of comparison to expand the frontiers of research on Islamic reform globally.

"As Fifty Years ago so Today, the Uncovering of a Richer and Fuller History is Inextricably Linked to the Continuing Struggle for a Better World"

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-34
Author(s):  
Timothy Ashplant
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Baby Boom ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Research Themes ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Scholarly Networks ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Univer Sity

In this interview, Prof. Timothy Ashplant reflects autobiographically on the intersecting effects – on his chosen research topics, and methodological approaches – of his social location (within successive educational institutions, in a first booming and then de-industrialising Britain), his professional position (working in a Polytechnic/"New Univer-sity"), and the knowledge exchanges arising from his involvement in successive and over-lapping (formal and informal, national and then international) scholarly networks. A member of the post-war "baby-boom" generation, whose student years included the multi-ple upheavals of 1968, he became and remains a member of a political and cultural gener-ation whose concerns – a desire to democratise society and remove (multiple) social and economic inequalities – shaped the matrix within which he formulated historical questions. He traces the impact on his research themes and methods of the transitions from labour to social and cultural history; the development of interdisciplinary approaches; and a grow-ing focus on the construction of class, national and gendered subjectivities, theorised through psychoanalytic concepts and investigated through the analysis of ego-documents. He concludes by evaluating both the defeats and the achievements of his generation's am-bitions, and the continuing relevance of the questions which British social and cultural historians have explored to current crises in Britain and elsewhere in Europe.

On the road: The novice munshi’s view of inter-imperial North India

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-501
Author(s):  
Naveena Naqvi
Keyword(s):  
East India Company ◽  
North India ◽  
The Road ◽  
Courtly Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
Imperial Capital ◽  
Imperial Politics ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Scholarly Networks ◽  
On The Road

This article analyses the diary entries made by a Persographic secretary (munshī), Aḥmad ʿAlī, who was employed by a retiring East India Company official to write an account of the journey they made together in 1780 across North India from Lucknow to the Mughal imperial capital in Delhi and back. Much of the landscape that they traversed—including a cluster of qasbahs, river passes, forests and fields—was formerly governed by a confederacy of Rohilla Afghans from 1737 to 1774. By 1780, however, this region was marked by the absence of well-defined, enduring state structures and witnessed an abundance of overlapping political claims. Under such conditions, Aḥmad ʿAlī, a novice secretary from this region who lacked access to major scholarly networks or courtly circles, found himself uniquely placed to observe and document the micro-level political and historical changes that he had lived through. Unlike his courtly counterparts, he witnessed transformations at a remove from both imperial politics and the regional courts that had developed through the eighteenth century. Rather than to a state or a single political project, his locus of service was aligned with the world of independent military entrepreneurs and their households, which were strewn across a region that he knew well. Questioning the view that secretaries were primarily cyphers of courtly culture or bureaucratic imperatives, the following pages demonstrate that while Aḥmad ʿAlī served his individual employer, he could imagine politics and history outside the constraints that came with corporate political affiliations, as a figure who was new to the work of secretarial penmanship and a seasoned bearer of textured regional knowledge.

scholarly journals Plutarch’s Thesis: The Contribution of Refugee Historians to Historical Writing, 1945–2010

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoon De Baets
Keyword(s):  
Brain Drain ◽  
Country Of Origin ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Scholarly Networks ◽  
The Brain

Can exile be seen as a blessing in disguise? The Greek moral essayist Plutarch, and others after him, argued that it can. This thesis that exile is a blessing in disguise is referred to as Plutarch's thesis, and this chapter attempts to test it. It analyzes 764 refugee historians — drawn from 63 countries on all continents — who made their contribution to historical writing after 1945. The overarching question is whether the loss for the country of origin featured as a corresponding benefit for the country of destination. For the countries of origin the three stages of exile — departure, sojourn abroad, and return — had repercussions. The brain drain was a devastating blow to history-writing, as ‘critical historical writing’ was replaced, for the most part, ‘by servile propaganda on behalf of repressive regimes’. During their sojourn abroad, many refugee historians edited ‘influential editions of sources’, while on their return, their influence was initially limited. Through their continued scholarly networks and contact with scholars and ideas from abroad, however, they enriched both their own scholarship and often the discipline itself. And although it was often delayed, in due course the works of those refugees who remained abroad became known or were rediscovered in their countries of origin.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document