"Negotiating space in the medieval World (Comparing early medieval India, the Islamic heartland and medieval Europe)" international conference at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 9am onwards on 6th-8th December 2012

Time : 9:00 am onwards

Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)

Place : Seminar Room, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi
Venue Info :  Events | About | Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Race Course(Yellow Line)'

Event Description : The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to the International Conference ‘Negotiating space in the medieval World (Comparing early medieval India, the Islamic heartland and medieval Europe)' in association with Prof. Madhavan Palat, Editor, Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund and Prof. Himanshu P. Ray, Chairperson, National Monuments Authority.

Abstract : Our conceptualizations of space are culturally regulated. We imbue defined spaces with meaning, project our schemes onto them and invest our thoughts, values and collective sensibilities in them. These spaces often become a means of constructing the collective past and social traditions, as well as personal and social identities. In this workshop, we address issues relating to the construction of space and the delineation of specific areas for particular purposes.
The theme draws on secondary literature by anthropologists and cultural geographers on the social and cultural construction of space. This space encompasses a range of environments from the village to the shrine, from journeys cutting across space to those connected through trade and economic transactions. These are by no means static categories and are instead decoded and invested with new meaning over time leading to re-appropriations and re-inventions both spatially and temporally.
Cross-cultural engagement no doubt highlights commonalities, but also underscores dissimilarities and differences. Sometimes the differences are more telling than the common features. For example, a comparison is often made between veneration of relics in medieval Christianity and Buddhism in South Asia. How valid is this comparison when one considers major differences in the nature of distribution and authentication of relics? Are these differences rooted in a cultural context? Does cross-cultural also mean engaging with diverse intellectual paradigms?
The spatial scope of the workshop includes both Europe and Asia, while in temporal terms, we would like to structure the discussion from the eighth to the fourteenth century CE. Within this very wide canvas, the focus would be on the following two themes.
• Spaces of Transformation and Identity: Under this rubric, we would like to compare and contrast examples from the built environment, as also spatial vocabularies across a range of cultural contexts including texts in Sanskrit, Latin, Persian and Arabic. The issues to be addressed include engagement with space as a way of articulating political ascendancy, or individual identity, or a sense of transcendence. For example, the poetry about the iwan of Chosroes serves as a part of the re-appropriation of formerly Sassanian sites by Arab rulers; indicating the engagement of pre-Islamic poets with the vastness of the desert and its association with a particular world view and a distinctive notion of fate and the place of the individual in the universe.
•Space of Interaction and Trade: Trade is seen as forging channels of communication for the development of new languages and knowledge, but more importantly it is located in
markets, and predicated on the skills of money changers, bankers and money lenders. To what extent do cultural parameters determine the nature and location of markets? Another aspect of the theme highlights the cultural context of money and the extent to which coins reflect ways in which several sections of society, including rulers bolstered their power through the use of imagery on coins, myths, language, and material culture. 
How do coins interpenetrate political spaces?

Related Events : Talks | History