UCL Centre for the Study of South Asia and the Indian Ocean World

Anti-colonialism in the ‘post-colonial’ state
7 April 2025, 5pm–7pm
- Mahvish Ahmad, “A Colony in a Colony: Balochistan and the Unfinished Project of Decolonisation.”*
- Sara Salem, “Faded Dreams – On Encountering Traces of Anticolonial Pasts.”

Anti-colonialism in the ‘post-colonial’ state The political independence of (certain) nation-states in the Global South during the twentieth century was not the end of anticolonialism. The geographical borders and social projects of these new states were contested within the movements which had helped to create them.

Book Launch: Lahore in Motion: Infrastructure, History and Belonging in Urban Pakistan
5 March 2025, 6pm-7:30pm
Please join us for a night of conversation, readings and refreshments to celebrate the publication of 'Lahore in Motion'

Book Launch: Lahore in Motion Please join us for a night of conversation, readings and refreshments to celebrate the publication of 'Lahore in Motion: Infrastructure, History and Belonging in Urban Pakistan'

📢 Calling all UCL SHAPE ECRs (arts, humanities or social sciences)
Want some advice on Getting Published? 📑📚
Join our interactive workshop on 5th March, 2-4pm at the IAS, UCL

IAS Early Career Network Workshop: Getting Published This interactive workshop will cover all aspects of building a strong publication record as an ECR.

Book Launch: Lahore in Motion, Infrastructure, History and Belonging in Urban Pakistan
5 March 2025, 6pm-7:30pm
Please join us for a night of conversation, readings and refreshments to celebrate the publication of 'Lahore in Motion'

Book Launch: Lahore in Motion Please join us for a night of conversation, readings and refreshments to celebrate the publication of 'Lahore in Motion: Infrastructure, History and Belonging in Urban Pakistan'

Book Launch: Lahore in Motion
5 March 2025, 6–7:30 pm
Please join us for a night of conversation, readings and refreshments to celebrate the publication of 'Lahore in Motion: Infrastructure, History and Belonging in Urban Pakistan'

Book Launch: Lahore in Motion Please join us for a night of conversation, readings and refreshments to celebrate the publication of 'Lahore in Motion: Infrastructure, History and Belonging in Urban Pakistan'

IAS Octagon Fund open for applications The Octagon Small Grants Fund supports UCL-based early-career researchers, including research students, from Arts & Humanities and Social & Historical Sciences. Apply by 24th February.

Provincialising the Anthropocene Research Labs Grants
Closing date: midnight on Sunday 23 February 2025
The IAS and UCL Anthropocene are offering up to five grants of £2,000-£3,000 to support teams of researchers to come together in a virtual Research Lab to work on cross-disciplinary themes or topics related to the Provincialising the Anthropocene conference.

Provincialising the Anthropocene Research Labs Grants The IAS and UCL Anthropocene are offering up to five grants of £2,000-£3,000 to support teams of researchers to come together in a virtual Research Lab to work on cross-disciplinary themes or topics related to the Provincialising the Anthropocene conference.

Panel discussion: The Great Mughals at the V&A
3 February 2025, 5-7pm
We are delighted to welcome V&A curators Susan Stronge and Emily Hannam to take part in this panel discussion.

Panel discussion: The Great Mughals at the V&A The Centre for the Study of South Asia and the Indian Ocean World is delighted to welcome V&A curators Susan Stronge and Emily Hannam to take part in this panel discussion.

Tour of the exhibition: ‘The Imaginary Institution of India, 1975-1998’
10 December 2024, 4:30 pm–6:00 pm
Barbican Centre, Silk St, Barbican, London
Featuring artwork by over 30 Indian artists, this major exhibition explores how artists metabolised the years of profound social upheaval, economic collapse, and rapid urbanisation between Indira Gandhi’s declaration of a state of emergency in 1975 and the Pokhran nuclear tests in 1998.

Tour of the exhibition: ‘The Imaginary Institution of India, 1975-1998’ Featuring artwork by over 30 Indian artists, this major exhibition explores how artists metabolised the years of profound social upheaval, economic collapse, and rapid urbanisation between Indira Gandhi’s declaration of a state of emergency in 1975 and the Pokhran nuclear tests in 1998.

Book Launch: 'Moral Atmospheres: Islam and Media in a Pakistani Marketplace'
20 Nov, 5:30–7:30 pm
With author Timothy Cooper and respondents Chris Moffat and Vincent Hasselbach. Chaired by Dr Ammara Maqsood.

Book Launch: 'Moral Atmospheres' With author Timothy Cooper and respondents Chris Moffat and Vincent Hasselbach. Chaired by Dr Ammara Maqsood.

HYBRID: Writing Displacements
10 July 2024, 12-3pm
With Shash Trevett – co-editor of 'Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala and English Poetry from Sri Lanka and its Diasporas'
Gathering poets and scholars, the space seeks to open and to build displacement-to-displacement conversations and solidarities, thinking across histories and geographies, movements, times and places.

HYBRID: Writing Displacements Gathering poets and scholars, the space seeks to open and to build displacement-to-displacement conversations and solidarities, thinking across histories and geographies, movements, times and places.

Indigeneity and Art in the Himalayas
5 July 1-5pm
A one-day event that showcases the work of artists and researchers from Nepal and India as they engage with the themes of Indigenous identity, collective rights, and possibilities of new futures amidst the unfolding climatic and social crises in the eastern Himalayas.

Indigeneity and Art in the Himalayas A one-day event that showcases the work of artists and researchers from Nepal and India as they engage with the themes of Indigenous identity, collective rights, and possibilities of new futures amidst the unfolding climatic and social crises in the eastern Himalayas.

Book talk: 'A thousand tiny cuts': mobility and security along the Bangladesh-India borderlands
20 June 2024, 5pm-7pm
Through a textured ethnography of the gendered political economy of mobility across postcolonial borderlands in South Asia, Sahana Ghosh challenges our understandings of the violence of bordering, migration and citizenship, and transnational inequalities.

Book talk: 'A thousand tiny cuts': mobility and security along the Bangladesh-India borderlands Through a textured ethnography of the gendered political economy of mobility across postcolonial borderlands in South Asia, Sahana Ghosh challenges our understandings of the violence of bordering, migration and citizenship, and transnational inequalities.

Book talk: 'A thousand tiny cuts': mobility and security along the Bangladesh-India borderlands
20 June 2024, 5:00 pm–7:00 pm
Through a textured ethnography of the gendered political economy of mobility across postcolonial borderlands in South Asia, Sahana Ghosh challenges our understandings of the violence of bordering, migration and citizenship, and transnational inequalities.

Book talk: 'A thousand tiny cuts': mobility and security along the Bangladesh-India borderlands Through a textured ethnography of the gendered political economy of mobility across postcolonial borderlands in South Asia, Sahana Ghosh challenges our understandings of the violence of bordering, migration and citizenship, and transnational inequalities.

CfP: ‘South Asia’ + ‘Middle East’ + ‘Early Modern’ = ?
In-person workshop at UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, London on 21 June 2024, 10am–6pm
Deadline for submissions, 30th April 2024
This workshop seeks to showcase new work in the field of early modern South Asian and Middle Eastern studies, while broadly examining what it means to use a period label derived from Europe’s historical experience and historiography, together with geographic categories originating in the Cold War West.

CfP: ‘South Asia’ + ‘Middle East’ + ‘Early Modern’ = ? In-person workshop at Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL, London on 21 June 2024, 10am–6pm. Deadline for submissions, 30th April 2024

'(Re) Configuring Atmospheres: Design, Technology and the Quest for ‘Pure air’ in Colonial India'
Breathing In: Air and Atmospheres Seminar with - Dr Awadhendra Sharan (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India)
20 May 2024, 2-3pm on Zoom

Breathing In: Air and Atmospheres Seminar '(Re) Configuring Atmospheres: Design, Technology and the Quest for ‘Pure air’ in Colonial India' - Dr Awadhendra Sharan, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India. This seminar series is run jointly by the IAS and WiSER at Wits, and takes place fortnightly on Zoom.

IAS Octagon Fund open for applications The Octagon Small Grants Fund supports UCL-based early-career researchers, including research students, from Arts & Humanities and Social & Historical Sciences.

CfP: ‘South Asia’ + ‘Middle East’ + ‘Early Modern’ = ?
In-person workshop at Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL, London on 21 June 2024, 10am–6pm.
Deadline for submissions, 30th April 2024

CfP: ‘South Asia’ + ‘Middle East’ + ‘Early Modern’ = ? In-person workshop at Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL, London on 21 June 2024, 10am–6pm. Deadline for submissions, 30th April 2024