Unstable Archives: Principal Investigator Megan Robb in Conversation with Yael Rice

Date: 14 December 2023
Time: 12:00–1:00 p.m. ET
Location: Zoom
Presented by: The Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography

Join principal investigator and SoFCB Senior Fellow Megan Robb and interviewer Yael Rice for a conversation about Robb’s project Unstable Archives, a born-digital archive connected to the life of Elizabeth Sharaf un-Nisa Ducarel (1758–1822), a Mughal woman who lived with and bore children by the first Company Supervisor of Purnea. Robb worked with the descendants of Elizabeth Sharaf un-Nisa Ducarel in England to digitize her archive of letters, penmanship notebook, jewelry, miniature painting, and textiles. Following this conversation, the audience will have the opportunity to participate in a Q&A session, moderated by Holly Borham. This event is part of a series celebrating new books and projects in critical bibliography, and is sponsored by Rare Book School’s Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (SoFCB).

This event was held on 14 December 2023. See below for a link to the YouTube recording.

Megan Robb is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work investigates Islam in South Asia, viewed from the perspective of Urdu print publics. She presses on issues that illuminate the religious identity of Muslims. Her first book, Print and the Urdu Public: Muslims, Newspapers, and Urban Life, was published with Oxford University Press in October 2020. Her current book project expands on her article on Elizabeth Sharaf un-Nisa Ducarel, published this spring with the American Historical Review.

Yael Rice is a Senior Fellow in Rare Book School’s SoFCB as well as Associate Professor of Art History and of Asian Languages and Civilizations at Amherst College. She specializes in the art and architecture of South Asia, Central Asia, and Iran, with a particular focus on manuscripts and other portable arts of the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries. She is the author of the recently published The Brush of Insight: Artists and Agency at the Mughal Court (University of Washington Press, 2023).

Holly Borham is Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings, and European Art at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas, Austin.

You are invited to watch the December 2023 recording of the event below via our RBS YouTube channel.