Thursday, May 29, 2025 10:00am – 6:30pm – Friday, May 30, 2025 9:00am – 5:00pm, Foster 103
Muzaffar Alam (Emeritus, George V. Bobrinsky Professor in South Asian Languages and Civilizations) is widely recognized as one of the most influential contemporary scholars of Mughal South Asia and as a central figure in what has come to be called the “New Mughal Historiography.” Yet his scholarship and contributions reach far beyond the aforementioned domains and make possible new ways of thinking about political and social history, the politics of language, the development of literary cultures, the processes of intercommunal intellectual exchange, and the dynamics of early colonial encounters in second-millennium South Asia. His research engages with sources in Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, and other vernacular languages, refining our understanding of both the connections and the distinctions between these linguistic and literary domains.
This conference brings together Professor Alam’s colleagues and students to reflect on the significance and impact of his scholarship and to celebrate his contributions to teaching and community-building at the University of Chicago and beyond.
Speakers:
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Jennifer Dubrow
Manan Ahmed
Rajeev Kinra
Jane Mikkelson
Andrew Halladay
Roy Fischel
Seema Alavi
Hassan Siddiqui
Dipesh Chakrabarty
Ulrike Stark
Gregory Max Bruce
Thibaut d’Hubert