The Nehru Memorial
Museum
Teen Murti
House, New Delhi-
cordially invites you to the International Conference
at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday-
Saturday, 6-8 December 2012
in
the Seminar Room, First Floor, Library
Building
on
‘Negotiating space in the medieval World:
(Comparing
early medieval India , the
Islamic heartland and medieval Europe )
in association with
Prof. Madhavan Palat , Editor, Selected
Works of
Jawaharlal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund and
Prof.
Himanshu P. Ray,
Chairperson, National Monuments Authority
Abstract:
Our conceptualizations of space are culturally
regulated. We imbue defined spaces with meaning, project our schemes onto them
and invest our thoughts, values and collective sensibilities in them. These
spaces often become a means of constructing the collective past and social
traditions, as well as personal and social identities. In this workshop, we
address issues relating to the construction of space and the delineation of
specific areas for particular purposes.
The theme draws on
secondary literature by anthropologists and cultural geographers on the social
and cultural construction of space. This space encompasses a range of
environments from the village to the shrine, from journeys cutting across space
to those connected through trade and economic transactions. These are by no
means static categories and are instead decoded and invested with new meaning
over time leading to re-appropriations and re-inventions both spatially and
temporally.
Cross-cultural engagement no doubt highlights
commonalities, but also underscores dissimilarities and differences. Sometimes
the differences are more telling than the common features. For example, a
comparison is often made between veneration of relics in medieval Christianity
and Buddhism in South Asia . How valid is this
comparison when one considers major differences in the nature of distribution
and authentication of relics? Are these differences rooted in a cultural
context? Does cross-cultural also mean engaging with diverse intellectual
paradigms?
The spatial scope of the workshop includes both
Europe and Asia , while in temporal terms, we
would like to structure the discussion from the eighth to the fourteenth
century CE. Within this very wide canvas, the focus would be on the following
two themes.
· Spaces of Transformation
and Identity:
Under this
rubric, we would like to compare and contrast examples from the built
environment, as also spatial vocabularies across a range of cultural contexts
including texts in Sanskrit, Latin, Persian and Arabic. The issues to be
addressed include engagement with space as a way of articulating political
ascendancy, or individual identity, or a sense of transcendence. For example,
the poetry about the iwan of Chosroes serves as a part of the
re-appropriation of formerly Sassanian sites by Arab rulers; indicating the
engagement of pre-Islamic poets with the vastness of the desert and its
association with a particular world view and a distinctive notion of fate and
the place of the individual in the universe.
· Space of Interaction and
Trade:
Trade is seen as forging channels of communication for the development of new
languages and knowledge, but more importantly it is located in markets, and predicated
on the skills of money changers, bankers and money lenders. To what extent do
cultural parameters determine the
nature
and location of markets? Another aspect of the theme highlights the cultural
context of money and the extent to which coins reflect ways in which several
sections of society, including rulers bolstered their power through the use of
imagery on coins, myths, language, and material culture. How do coins
interpenetrate political spaces?
Programme Schedule
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Thursday, 6 December 2012
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9:00 a.m. - 9:15 a.m.
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Welcome
by Prof. Mahesh Rangarajan, Director, NMML
Introductory
Remarks by Prof. Madhavan Palat Editor, Selected
Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, JNMF
and Prof. Himanshu
Prabha Ray, Chairperson,
National Monuments Authority
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9:15 a.m.- 10:30 a.m.
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Keynote Address
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Chair:
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Prof.
Madhavan Palat, Editor,
Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, JNMF
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Speaker:
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Prof.
Benjamin Kedar, Hebrew
‘
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10:30a.m.-10:45a.m.
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Tea
Break
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10:45a.m.- 1:00 p.m.
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PANEL 1:
Transforming the Natural Landscape
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Speakers:
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Prof. Sharon E. J.
Gerstel,
‘Sacred Space and Sacred Topography:
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Prof.
Vidula Jayaswal, Jnana
Pravaha, Varansi
‘ Sacred Spaces of the middle
A case study of
Varanasi ‘
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Discussant:
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Prof.
Benjamin Kedar , Hebrew
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1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
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Lunch
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2:00 p.m. - 3.30 p.m.
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PANEL 2:
Archaeology of Sacred Landscapes
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Chair:
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Prof. Lisa
Owen,
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Speakers :
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Prof. Uma Kant Mishra,
Lecturer,
‘Shrines as ‘monuments’ :
Issues of
classification, custody and conflict. A study of conservation and protection
of Khandagiri-Udayagiri and Lingaraja of
|
|
|
Ms.
Aparajita Bhattacharya,
‘The power of the past, invoking tradition in
negotiating sacred space:
The Curious case of a
Central Indian village’
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3:30 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.
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Tea Break
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Discussant:
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Ms. Deeksha Bharadwaj,
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Friday, 7 December 2012
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9:00a.m.- 11: 00 a.m.
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PANEL
3 : Conceptualizing
Space
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Chair:
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Prof. Benjamin Kedar, Hebrew
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Speakers :
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Dr. Christine Stephan-Kaissis, Ruprecht-Karls-University,
‘Transcultural
visions of the World:
Seeing
|
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Prof Himanshu Prabha Ray,
National Monuments Authority,
‘The
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Discussant:
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Dr.
Shonaleeka Kaul,
Department of History,
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11:00a.m.-11:15 a.m.
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Tea Break
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11:15a.m.- 1:30 p.m.
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PANEL 4 : Religious Identity and Sacred Landscapes
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Chair:
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Prof. Vidula Jayaswal, Jnana
Pravaha,
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Speakers :
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Dr.
Lisa Owen University
of North
‘Constructing
sacred space and identity through imagery:
A study of Medieval Jain rock-cut sites in
Tamil Nadu’
|
|
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Dr.
Anne Casile, Research Fellow, Research Institute for
Development,
‘Negotiating
space around water:
Reading
the archaeological landscapes of an agro-urban centre in early Medieval
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1:30 p.m.– 2:30 p.m.
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Lunch
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2:30 p.m.-4:00 p.m.
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Dr.
Sandrine Gill, Independent Researcher, Paris.
‘Space,
Architecture, landscape and rituals at Paharpur (
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Discussant:
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Prof. Himanshu Prabha Ray, Chairperson, National
Monuments Authority
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4:00 p.m.- 4:15 p.m.
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Tea Break
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4:15p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
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PANEL 5 : Monetary Space
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Chair:
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Prof. Farhat Hasan, Department of
History,
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Speakers:
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Ms. Mamta Dwivedi, Doctoral Candidate,
‘Colonial
imagination and identity attribution:
Numismatic
cues for community identufication’
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Dr. Peter van Alfen, American
Numismatic
‘The
construction and contestation of monetary space in the Ancient and Early
Medieval Mediterranean World’
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5:30 p.m.
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Dr. Rebecca Day, Dumbarton Oaks,
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Discussant:
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Dr. Shailendra Bhandare, ,
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Saturday, 8 December 2012
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9:00 a.m.- 11:00 a.m.
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PANEL 6: ‘Writing’ Space
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Chair:
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Prof. Udaya Kumar, Senior Fellow, NMML
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Speakers:
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Prof. Noemie Verdon,
‘Al-Biruni’s
conceptualization of al-Hind’
|
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Dr. Shonaleeka Kaul, Department of History,
‘Kalhana’s
Aspect of the Literary
Production of space in the Rajatarangini’
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Discussant:
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Prof. Bhairabi Prasad Sahu, Department
of History,
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11:00a.m.-11:15 a.m.
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Tea Break
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11:15a.m.-1:30 p.m.
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Panel 7: Monetary Space in
History
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Chair:
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Prof.
Bhairabi Prasad Sahu, Department of History,
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Speakers:
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Dr.
Shailendra Bhandare,
‘‘Space
for Change’ :
Reviewing
‘paucity of coins’ in Early Medieval
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Dr. Sanjay Garg, SAARC Cultural Centre,
‘Sikka and the Khillat:
Caliphal Recognition of Muslim Rule
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Discussant
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Prof. Farhat Hasan, Department
of History,
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1:30 p.m.–2:30 p.m .
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LUNCH
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