Elizabeth started following the work of 2 people.
Elizabeth started following the work of Eivind Heldaas Seland, University of Bergen, AHKR (Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion).
Elizabeth started following the work of Jason Neelis, Wilfrid Laurier University, Religion and Culture.
Faculty Member, Humanities
SOAS University of London, Centre of South East Asian Studies
Stanford University, Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
Reader in South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies
About
I am a historian of Islamic South Asia and the Indian Ocean world and my current research focuses on the mobility of people, things and ideas across this area in the medieval and early modern periods. I have multiple disciplinary and theoretical interests including historical anthropology, historical archaeology, geography and visual and material culture studies. I am also interested in issues of periodization and the need for dialogue and thinking across the pre-Modern/ Modern/ Contemporary divides. My first degree is in Art History from the University of Edinburgh and I hold a PhD in Islamic art and archaeology from SOAS, University of London.
I am currently Reader (Associate Professor) in South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies at De Montfort University in the UK. In October 2011 I begin a two year Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship to complete my book “West Asia in the Indian Ocean 500-1500 CE”, a study of the worlds of West Asian communities and networks in the Indian Ocean during this critical millennium.
As of December 2011 I am the Principal Investigator in charge of an AHRC Research Network Grant entitled A Persian Church in the Land of Pepper - Routes, Networks and Communities in the Early Medieval Indian Ocean. I initiated this research network in recognition of the pressing need for research into the Indian Ocean world before 1500 and the need to do this through multidisciplinary and trans-regional collaborations. The network gathers over 20 international scholars from Japan via India through to the USA to work on the first holistic study of the Kollam plates, a unique mid-9th century land grant made to an Eastern Christian Church at this south Indian port. Among the core themes of the network are issues of legal extraterritoriality and legal encounter, cultural translation and inter-faith cooperation through religious patronage.
The unique ethnic and cultural profile of Leicester, where De Montfort University is based, provides a natural background and local relevance to this research. As is well known, in the 2001 census over 28% of respondents in Leicester indicated a South Asian ethnicity and many of these diasporas are the fruit of long and complex migrations across the Indian Ocean.
Articles in press:
“Describing a lost camel. Clues to West Asian diasporas in South Asian trade, 10th -12th centuries CE”. In Axelle Rougeulle et Eric Vallet eds, L'horizon Sharma. Mutations des réseaux commerciaux de l'océan Indien occidental (ca 980-1150), Publications de la Sorbonne, Paris.
Forthcoming:
Lambourn, E. "Arabia, the Gulf, Red Sea and the Indian Ocean Trade (1250-1450)". In G. Necipoglu and F. B. Flood eds., The Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture, Blackwell Companions to Art History.
Coming conference and seminar papers:
19 March 2012 - “The Indian Ocean in transition – Persianate Buddhist networks and the rise of Islam”, Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum, Harvard University.
12-14 Apr. 2012 - Title to be confirmed. The Medieval Globe: Communication, Connectivity, and Exchange, Program in Medieval Studies, University of Illinois.
12-14 Nov. 2012 “The World of a Ship – object biography, text and material culture in the Medieval Indian Ocean, or why the Medieval Indian Ocean is not Prehistory”, The Dimensions of the Indian Ocean World Past, Murdoch University, McGill University and The Western Australian Maritime Museum, Fremantle, Australia.
