Decolonization and Its Forms of Knowledge: The Arabs in India

 

Today, we have a fairly comprehensive idea of colonialism's forms of knowledge. Scholars have reconstructed the methods and networks of Oriental and Islamic Studies in Europe and across the North Atlantic. Far less is known about the development of such fields in Asia itself. This talk, part of a larger study focused on decolonization's forms of knowledge, focused on the history of West Asian Studies in India after 1947. Particular attention was paid to how ideas of a shared Indo-Arab past impacted scholarly efforts, shaped institutional arrangements, and determined political attachments. An effort was made to link the content of thought with its conditions.

 

 

Esmat Elhalaby is an Assistant Professor of Transnational History. He works principally on the intellectual history of West and South Asia. His writing has appeared in Modern Intellectual History, American Quarterly, Michigan Quarterly Review, Dissent, Boston Review, and elsewhere. Before joining the University of Toronto, Esmat held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of California, Davis and NYU Abu Dhabi. He received his Ph.D in History from Rice University in 2019.

 

Francis Cody (Chair) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Asian Institute at the University of Toronto, where he is the Director of the Dr. David Chu Program in Contemporary Asian Studies and the Centre for South Asian Studies. He has been teaching at U of T since 2008. His research focuses on language, politics, and media in southern India. He first brought these interests to bear on a study of citizenship, literacy, and social movement politics in Tamil Nadu.