New entries in “Religion and Urbanity online” (upload 2/2024)
The peer-reviewed, open access database of the “Religion and Urbanity” research...
Tagged: India
Conference Announcement: Making Boundaries 2025
The KFG « Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations » is announcing its next annual conference, which will take place in Erfurt from the 4th to 6th June 2025. The topic is Making Boundaries – Performing Religion and Urbanity.
“Garten und Religion?!” – Sonderbeitrag zum Thema Paradiesgarten
Masterstudierende der Uni Erfurt erarbeiteten gemeinsam mit Sara Keller einen Bereich in der Sonderausstellung zu “Garten und Religion?!”, die derzeit im Erfurter Gartenbaumuseum zu sehen ist. Im Seminar „Der Paradiesgarten als Idealraum“ setzten sich die Studierenden mit religiösen und philosophischen Konzepten auseinander, die von der Antike bis in die Frühe Neuzeit die Gestaltung persischer und indischer Gärten beeinflussten. Die sogenannten Charbagh (oder Chaharbagh) Gärten zeichnen sich durch eine geometrische Anordnung von Strukturen wie Einfriedungen, Wasserkanälen, Pavillons und Wegen aus, weisen aber auch eine üppige Flora auf.
Some highlights from our blog
Since 2018 we have been publishing articles, reviews, reports and personal reflections on a variety of topics. In most cases they are tied in one way or an other to one of our research areas: South Asia, especially India and Pakistan, the Mediterranean from Antiquity until today, and Europe, especially in the Medieval and Early Modern period. We have picked some of our favourite entried by fellows and core group members of the Religion and Urbanity group in Erfurt.
City of Words
Review by Supriya Chaudhuri. In February last year I was in Hampi, Karnataka, once the sacral core of the city of Vijayanagara, capital of India’s last great Hindu empire. Sitting in the shadow of the Virupaksha temple, I read Salman Rushdie’s fifteenth novel, Victory City, a magical, intricate history of the foundation and destruction of the city of Vijayanagara, or Bisnaga, as it was called by the Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes.
Reclaiming Karbala: Nation, Islam and Literature of the Bengali Muslims (Routledge, 2023)
The new book by Epsita Halder, former fellow of the ‘Religion and Urbanity’ group, is titled ‘Reclaiming Karbala: Nation, Islam and Literature of the Bengali Muslims’. It was published in 2023 and studies the emergence and formation of a viable Muslim identity in Bengal over the late-19th century through the 1940s. Beginning with an explanation of significance of the martyrdom of Hazrat Muhammad’s grandson Husayn in the battle of Karbala (680 CE) for the Muslims, this book explores how this particular historical episode was recurrently reclaimed and reinterpreted by the Bangla-speaking ulama and Muslim literati to define what it meant to be Muslim in colonial Bengal.
Conference report: Urban Co-Temporality
The report by Zahra Naghshband (University of Erfurt) on the 2024 international conference “Urban Co-Temporality: Historical and Theoretical approaches”, organised by the “Religion and Urbanity” research group and the Erfurter RaumZeit Forschung, has now been published on H-Soz-Kult.
Video: Sara Keller & Susanne Rau at the Bhopal Literature & Art Festival 2024
In January 2024, Prof. Dr. Susanne Rau and Dr. Sara Keller (both University of Erfurt) participated in one of India’s largest events dedicated to literature, the Bhopal Literature and Art Festival.
Woad and Indigo: A Story of Two Cities, Two Continents and Decolonisation
Our former fellow Shail Mayaram on the two colours blue: Having lived with indigo for some four decades in India, I delighted in Erfurt’s own blue colour, called woad. Woad is a very distinct blue, as in the napkin that graced my table of my IBZ (the University’s International Guest House) flat, a Christmas gift from my friend, the KFG Fellow, Raminder Kaur.
Epsita Halder awarded prize for “Reclaiming Karbala”
Our fellow Dr Epsita Halder, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University (Kolkata), was awarded a prize by the Indian History Congress at its latest session at Kakatiya University in Waragal for her monograph “Reclaiming Karbala – Nation, Islam and Literature of the Bengali Muslisms”
Hanafi Law and Urbanization in Mughal India
Hanafi law, one of the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence, which was widely practiced in the Ottoman Empire, was also the imperial legal system of the Mughal Empire (1526-1857) in South Asia. Hanafi law governed property rights of Muslims and non-Muslims alike in the rural and the urban spheres of the Mughal Empire. Unfortunately, research on Hanafi law in Mughal India, in its theoretical and practical perspectives, remains virtually inexistant in current historiography. In this blogpost, I sketch the salient features of the relation between law and Mughal urban practices.
Remembering Professor Rangachari Champakalakshmi (1932-2024)
On the occaision of the passing away of prof Champakalashmi we would like to share the condolence note published by her colleagues at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharal Nehru University in New Delhi. She was one of the finest and leading historians of early and medieval India, a passionate and committed teacher, and a friend to many.
Workshop Report: Towards a new history of Calicut
Workshop report by Fathima Thesni (Farook College, Kozhikode) on the nternational book project workshop titled ‘Towards a New History of Calicut’ on 5 & 6 January, 2024, organised by Susanne Rau and T Muhammadali.
Panel Report: City Branding: Urbanity and the Construction of City Images in Europe and South Asia
On h-soz-kult, you can now read the panel report by our fellow Heinrich Lang on the “Religion and Urbanity” panel at the 2023 Deutscher Historikertag in Leipzig. the panel “City Branding: Urbanity and the Construction of City Images in Europe and South Asia” was convened by Martin Christ, Sara Keller and Susanne Rau.
Ashokan places in Madhya Pradesh
Maara Dass comments on her research on Ashokan places in Madhya Pradesh, India, and her trip to various archaeological sites in the Bhopal area with Susanne Rau of the Religion and Urbanity group.
