A talk by Nile Green
“Architectural Rekhta: The History of Art History in Urdu"
Time: 4:15pm - 5:45pm
Location: Room 208 Knox Hall, 606 West 122nd Street, between Broadway and Claremont
Moderated by Katherine Ewing (Religion; Director, South Asia Institute)
Abstract: This illustrated talk traces the development of a rich corpus of art historical writing in Urdu from around 1850 to 1950. Partly devoted to the built heritage of the Mughals,partly to what came to be seen as a shared ‘Islamic’ architectural heritage outside India, these writings had a complex relationship with European field of Islamic art history that emerged in the same period. Ranging from guidebooks to Agra to translations from French and English, such Urdu texts show the emergence of new conceptions of both art and history in the colony.
Nile Green is Professor of History at UCLA, where he holds the Ibn Khaldun Endowed Chair in World History. A former Guggenheim Fellow, his many previous books include Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean (which won the Middle East Studies Association’s Albert Hourani Book Award and the Association for AsianStudies’ Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Book Award); The Love of Strangers: What Six Muslim Students Learned in Jane Austen’s London (a New York Times editors’ choice);and Global Islam: A Very Short Introduction. His newest book, How Asia Found Herself: A Story of Intercultural Understanding, was published by Yale in 2022. He also hosts the podcast Akbar’s Chamber: Experts Talk Islam.
