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EVENTS AND NEWS

23-24 May 2024 - Event
Young Researchers’ 2nd Indo-Persian Workshop

Writing in the Indo-Persian World

The practice of writing is an essential one in South Asian history, one that perhaps goes back to the very first civilization found therein, the Indus Valley Civilization. Over the centuries, the technical, economic, social and the cultural shifts brought about by the inclusion of South Asia in the Persianate and Islamicate cosmopolises has had profound impact on South Asian writing. From scriptural change to material cultural evolution, from palmleaf manuscripts in brahmi-derived scripts to Persian texts on bound paper, the story of writing in South Asia is a pregnant one, with a lasting impact to this day. A reflection on the practice of writing in South Asia goes beyond the linguistic aspect of it all but rather brings into the light important questions such as the readership and the economy behind book exchange and production. Furthermore, when considering the Persian language, such a reflection puts to the fore an important yet often neglected fact: that South Asian readership and textual production in Persian largely outweighed the Iranian.

Writing does not exist in a vacuum: manuscripts, and especially manuscripts produced for the elite, are often decorated and illustrated. A reflection on writing will therefore necessarily also cover topics such as calligraphy, illumination, bookbinding, paper-production as well as the data contained in manuscripts in and around the text, mobilizing disciplines such as palaeography, codicology, and diplomatics.


Registration and Participation: Please kindly let us know if you wish to attend by filling the following Google Form, and indicating if you will be attending online or in presence. This allows us to plan for seats and catering. https://forms.gle/9QZk92YATLE2PEHQ6


Link for online attendancehttps://bbb.ehess.fr/b/raf-iri-zcu-2hs

Location and info

Venue : École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Centre de la Vieille Charité, 2 rue de la Charité, 13002, Marseille. 


Organisation: Victor Baptiste (EPHE) and Raffaello De Leon-Jones Diani (EHESS). With the collaboration of Inayatullah Din (EHESS) and Lingli Li (Göttingen-EHESS)