Stellar cast for our roundtable discussion w/ @MEMOrients: @HassanaMoosa @Lubaabanama @endeeeka & Münire Zeyneb Maksudoğlu #OnBelonging
To start: what do we mean by ‘early modern orients’? What/who are we talking about when we refer to Anglo-Islamic encounters in the pre-modern period? How do we approach the multifaceted layers of identity? #OnBelonging
One distinction: theatre-goers who ‘encounter’ Islamic world when they pay a penny to hear a play in London, vs. the knowledge gained by those who actually travelled – galley slaves, merchants, sailors, pilgrims, ambassadors. #OnBelonging
There is a widespread sense of Islamic worlds being multiple – English aware of the fluidity, complexity of Islamic cultures through trade & diplomacy. Saracen, Moor, Turk: even these terms reflect a kind of transition that mirror changes in Islamic power. #OnBelonging
How do these multifaceted encounters enter into literary genres? Panellists discuss how gestures & cultural practices recorded in English diplomatic writing become codified in plays and manuals, from Henry Blount’s writings to Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine. #OnBelonging
Literary representation also brings up the importance of comparative approaches for thinking about dynamics of transcultural exchange. Mughal imperial memoirs are much less interested in English travellers and customs than the other way around. (Roe who?) #OnBelonging
Discussion turning now to how work on histories of encounter can be decolonial. Must reframe conception of pre-modern centres of power, rather than anachronistically project back; and acknowledge that postcolonial is not necessarily decolonial. #OnBelonging #ShakeRace
‘Pre-modern orients’ is a term that is intended to give a glimpse into religious, racial, social diversity. Important to understand period on own terms, not superimposing 19th, 20th century ideas to earlier moment. Discontinuity is as valuable as continuity. #OnBelonging
'This was a moment of Ottoman supremacy, not white supremacy.' Hybridity in pre-colonial period is William Hawkins going to India wearing Indian attire & maintaining Indian customs, or Robert Shirley coming back to England and wearing a Persian turban in a portrait. #OnBelonging
Panel closes w/ speakers inviting us to 'unravel the prejudices' & think about the different kinds of vocabularies & frameworks we might adopt to think about the complexity of identity and power relations in this period on its own terms. Thank you @MEMOrients! #OnBelonging
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