One project showcased at the event was a collaboration between the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, the Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata, and Exeter academics Dr Andrew Rudd and Dr Nandini Chatterjee. 

Exeter hosts British Association of South Asian Studies Conference

Between April 18th and April 20th, the University of Exeter hosted the British Association of South Asian Studies (BASAS) Conference. The conference is the most important annual event for BASAS, the biggest professional association for scholars working on South Asia in the UK.

The conference brought together well over 100 scholars studying a wide variety of aspects of South Asian history, politics, and culture. Over the course of three days, the event saw 49 panels, over 100 presentations, and 2 exhibitions engage with a huge variety of pressing issues, linked to the broad theme of South Asia’s global engagement with the world.

 The conference was hosted by academic staff from the College’s South Asia Research Centre, ‘an interdisciplinary group of researchers and postgraduate students across the College whose work relates wholly or in part to the wider Indian subcontinent and global South Asian communities.’

 Prof Andrew Thorpe, Pro-Vice Chancellor for the College of Humanities, said ‘It’s great that Exeter has hosted such an important conference. BASAS is a vitally important organisation, supporting a powerful network of academics working on the region and, among many other things, doing great work to assist early career academics in their development. It’s been a real honour to have hosted their conference, and a pleasure to have had such an impressive group of South Asianists on campus for three days. We look forward to welcoming BASAS again in the future, as our own strength in South Asian Studies continues to develop.’

 The South Asia Research Centre has achieved great success in recent years, both growing in size and consistently attracting support many new research projects. Bringing BASAS to Exeter provided both an opportunity to further develop connections with conference delegates drawn from all over the world and to showcase Exeter’s outstanding research in this area.

 Prof Andrew Thorpe went on to say ‘I’m really proud of Exeter’s South Asia Research Centre. It is a research group that has grown a great deal over the past few years, so I feel confident in saying that we have one of the strongest and most diverse collections of researchers working on this region in the UK and beyond. I am sure that hosting BASAS will have enriched their research community still further, and I hope that the connections made over the course of these three days will lead to further exciting research collaborations in future years.’

One project showcased at the event was a collaboration between the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, the Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata, and Exeter academics Dr Andrew Rudd and Dr Nandini Chatterjee. An exhibition, displayed during the Forum Street during the conference, looked at natural history artworks made in late 18th and early 19th century colonial India. The project brings together complimentary research collections held by the RAMM and Victoria Memorial Hall, allowing for powerful new insights to be made into both sets of materials.

Date: 4 May 2018

Read more University News