The Making of the Awadh Culture

The Making of the Awadh Culture
Author: Madhu Trivedi
Publisher: Primus Books
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 819089188X

This book makes an extensive study of the art and culture of Awadh during the Nawabi period (c. 1722-1856), with a focus on the city of Lucknow. The work takes up evidence available in a variety of primary and secondary sources, especially in the Persian and Urdu languages, in its study of visuals and artefacts, as well as performance traditions and craft techniques which are derived from this period. Highlighting the literary milieu of the period, and the developments in the realm of music, painting, architecture and industrial arts, this volume also explores how some of the arts and crafts assumed considerable European colour, and demonstrates how the ethos of the syncretic Indo-Persian culture, the renowned ganga-jamuni tahzib, remained intact.

Women, Wealth and the State in Early Colonial India

Women, Wealth and the State in Early Colonial India
Author: Nicholas J Abbott
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2024-08-25
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1399526499

Few polities were more instrumental to the rise of the East India Company and the advent of British colonial rule in South Asia than the Mughal successor state of Awadh (c. 1722–1856). And few individuals influenced the making of the Awadh regime and its pivotal relationship with the Company more than the chief consorts (begams) of its ruling dynasty. Drawing on previously unexamined Persian sources, this book centres the begams of Awadh within a revised history of state-formation and conceptual change in pre- and early colonial India. In so doing, it posits the begams as essential, if contested, builders of both the Awadh regime and the Company state, and as ambivalent partners in forging evolving political economies and emerging conceptual languages of statehood and sovereignty in early colonial India.

The Scattered Court

The Scattered Court
Author: Richard David Williams
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2023-04-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226825450

"How far did colonialism transform north Indian art music? In the period between the Mughal empire and the British Raj, did the political landscape bleed into aesthetics, music, dance, and poetry? The Scattered Court presents a new history of how Hindustani court music responded to the political transitions of the nineteenth century. Examining musical culture through a diverse and multilingual archive, primarily using sources in Urdu, Bengali, and Hindi that have not been translated or critically examined before, challenges our assumptions about the period. The book presents a longer history of interactions between northern India and Bengal, with a core focus on the two courts of Wajid Ali Shah (1822-1887), the last ruler of the kingdom of Awadh. Wajid Ali Shah was one of the most colorful and controversial characters of the nineteenth century and has had a polarizing legacy. According to political histories and popular memory, he was a failure of a king, who was forced to surrender his kingdom to the East India Company, on the eve of the Indian Uprising of 1857. On the other hand, in musical histories, he is remembered either as a decadent aesthete or a path-breaking genius. The Scattered Court excavates the place of music in his court in Lucknow and his court-in-exile at Matiyaburj, Calcutta (1856-1887). The book charts the movement of musicians and dancers between these courts, as well as the transregional circulation of intellectual traditions and musical genres, and demonstrates the importance of the exile period for the rise of Calcutta as a celebrated center of Hindustani classical music. Since Lucknow is associated with late Mughal or Nawabi society, and Calcutta with colonial modernity, examining the relationship between the two cities sheds light on forms of continuity and transition over the nineteenth century, as artists and their patrons navigated political ruptures and social transformations. The Scattered Court challenges the existing historiography of Hindustani music and Indian culture under colonialism, by arguing that our focus on Anglophone sources and modernizing impulses has directed us away from the aesthetic subtleties, historical continuities, and emotional dimensions of nineteenth-century music"--

Costumes and Textiles of Awadh

Costumes and Textiles of Awadh
Author: Sushama Swarup
Publisher: Roli Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Design
ISBN: 9788174368911

This book takes a fascinating journey, connecting dates and events to the evolution of costumes, textiles, colours, motifs and ornamentations from the eighteenth century up to present-day India.

Writing the Mughal World

Writing the Mughal World
Author: Muzaffar Alam
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 724
Release: 2011-08-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 023152790X

Between the mid-sixteenth and early nineteenth century, the Mughal Empire was an Indo-Islamic dynasty that ruled as far as Bengal in the east and Kabul in the west, as high as Kashmir in the north and the Kaveri basin in the south. The Mughals constructed a sophisticated, complex system of government that facilitated an era of profound artistic and architectural achievement. They promoted the place of Persian culture in Indian society and set the groundwork for South Asia's future development. In this volume, two leading historians of early modern South Asia present nine major joint essays on the Mughal Empire, framed by an essential introductory reflection. Making creative use of materials written in Persian, Indian vernacular languages, and a variety of European languages, their chapters accomplish the most significant innovations in Mughal historiography in decades, intertwining political, cultural, and commercial themes while exploring diplomacy, state-formation, history-writing, religious debate, and political thought. Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam center on confrontations between different source materials that they then reconcile, enabling readers to participate in both the debate and resolution of competing claims. Their introduction discusses the comparative and historiographical approach of their work and its place within the literature on Mughal rule. Interdisciplinary and cutting-edge, this volume richly expands research on the Mughal state, early modern South Asia, and the comparative history of the Mughal, Ottoman, Safavid, and other early modern empires.

SOCRATES

SOCRATES
Author: Khojastehpour Adineh
Publisher: Saurabh Chandra, Socrates Scholarly Research Journal
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2016-01-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

SOCRATES is an international, multi-lingual, multi-disciplinary refereed and indexed scholarly journal produced as par of the Harvard Dataverse Network. This journal appears quarterly in English, Hindi, Persian in 22 disciplines. About this Issue: This issue of Socrates has been divided into five sections. The first section of this issue is Language & Literature- English. The first article of this section focuses on the ways, Dariyush Mehrjoui (well-known Iranian filmmaker) has tried to portray an Iranian intellectual in a situation similar to that of Herzog, rendering through this character the complex socio-political and cultural situation of post-revolutionary Iran., with the objective of offering insight into the political and cultural atmosphere of the modernized and post-revolutionary Iran. The second article of this section analyses Sam Shepard reflection on the traditional meanings of myth and their erasure in the postmodern societies. The second section of this issue is Language & Literature- Persian. The first article of this section is in Persian script, which analyses the Photography of water and reflection of meaning in the works of Prof. Amir H. Zekrgoo. The second article of this section seeks to provide a short introduction of notables who migrated to Awadh after the fall of Delhi and give a general overview of the life and contribution of these literary figures towards the development of the Persian literature. The third section of this issue is Philosophy, which contains an article that details the experiences of a social scientist in his quest to develop a greater understanding of science, scientists and those characteristics that ultimately determine greatness. The fourth section of this issue is Politics, Law and Governance, which contains an article that identifies good governance approach in tackling the raging menace of insecurity in the African continent. Finally, the paper concluded that one important missing link in the current democratization as well as guarantee of security in Africa is the challenge of flawed democracy. The fifth section of this issue is Interviews and Discussions, which contains the interview of Author and Historian Monette Bebow-Reinhard, who has been working with copper ancient rarities since 2000. She has been incorporating a database of copper ancient rarities (CAMD)all through the country with an end goal to track an exchange system.

Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India

Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India
Author: Katherine Butler Schofield
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2023-11-08
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1009058606

Based on a vast, virtually unstudied archive of Indian writings alongside visual sources, this book presents the first history of music and musicians in late Mughal India c.1748–1858 and takes the lives of nine musicians as entry points into six prominent types of writing on music in Persian, Brajbhasha, Urdu and English, moving from Delhi to Lucknow, Hyderabad, Jaipur and among the British. It shows how a key Mughal cultural field responded to the political, economic and social upheaval of the transition to British rule, while addressing a central philosophical question: can we ever recapture the ephemeral experience of music once the performance is over? These rich, diverse sources shine new light on the wider historical processes of this pivotal transitional period, and provide a new history of music, musicians and their audiences during the precise period in which North Indian classical music coalesced in its modern form.

Making the 'Woman'

Making the 'Woman'
Author: Sutapa Dutta
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2023-12-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1003817173

The book examines the representation of women, their agency and subjectivity and gender relations in 18th- and 19th-century India. The chapters in the volume interrogate notions and discourses of ‘women’ and ‘gender’ during the period, historically shaped by multiple and even competing actors, practices and institutions. They highlight the ‘making of the woman’ across a wide spectrum of subject areas, regions and roles and attempt to understand the contradictions and differences in social experiences and identity formations of women. The volume also deals with prevalent notions of masculinity and femininity, normative and non-conformist expressions of gender and sexual identity and epistemological concerns of gender, especially in its intersectional interplay with other axes of caste, class, race, region and empire. Presenting unique understandings of our gendered pasts, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of history, gender studies and South Asian studies.

Remapping Persian Literary History, 1700-1900

Remapping Persian Literary History, 1700-1900
Author: Schwartz Kevin L. Schwartz
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2020-03-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1474450873

Integrating forgotten tales of literary communities across Iran, Afghanistan and South Asia - at a time when Islamic empires were fracturing and new state formations were emerging - this book offers a more global understanding of Persian literary culture in the 18th and 19th centuries. It challenges the manner in which Iranian nationalism has infilitrated Persian literary history writing and recovers the multi-regional breadth and vibrancy of a global lingua franca connecting peoples and places across Islamic Eurasia. Focusing on 3 case studies (18th-century Isfahan, a small court in South India and the literary climate of the Anglo-Afghan war), it reveals the literary and cultural ties that bound this world together as well as some of the trends that broke it apart.

Dastarkhwan-e-Awadh

Dastarkhwan-e-Awadh
Author: R.K Saxena
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2015-05-01
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 9351773841

Timeless recipes from the stately kitchens of the Awadh regionDastarkhwan (noun): A meticulously laid out ceremonial spread of food. The nawabs of Awadh were renowned for their extravagance and their patronage of the best craftsmen. Of all the arts that flourished then, cooking was considered one of the finest, and its practitioners were among the most sought after. Famous for its nafaasat (refinement) and nazaakat (delicateness), Awadhi cuisine blends spices over a slow fire to achieve seasonal harmony with nature. Retelling anecdotes and secrets long held by the descendants of the nawabs, talukdars, bawarchis and rakabdars of the region, Sangeeta Bhatnagar and R.K. Saxena recreate the culture and cuisine of a culturally and imaginatively rich era.