The UBC Department of History Colloquium Series brings together scholars who are exploring important methodological, chronological, or geographical issues that challenge the frontiers of our discipline and contribute strongly to our collective discussions.
We are pleased to invite you to the 2023/2024 Colloquium series, featuring a joint talk by Dr. Sayyid Muhammad Farid (Department of Persian, Oriental College University of the Punjab, Allama Iqbal Campus, Lahore Pakistan; and Visiting Professor, UBC History) and Dr. Anne Murphy (UBC Department of History).
Whether you choose to attend virtually or in-person, please register for the event. A light lunch will be available for in-person attendees who register in advance.
Talk Abstract
The Greater Punjab State centred at Lahore emerged at the opening of the nineteenth century. Its founding mahārājā (“great king”) was Ranjit Singh, who ruled until his death in 1839. The state represents the first and only instance of a locally controlled, independent state in Punjab, a linguistic and cultural region that had until then been integrated into larger state formations. This is the state’s importance for many today: it was Punjabi, and it was independent and sovereign. It’s founding ruler Ranjit Singh thus represents a kind of ideal: a self-made Punjabi leader, valorized as both a Sikh and a “secular” and catholic ruler.
In our presentation, we will review the treatment of this state in scholarly and popular terms, and suggest the limitations of dominant formulations of the state and its significance. We will then present nascent research into the Greater Punjab state of Ranjit Singh utilizing records associated with the state that have been neglected in existing scholarship, and suggest some of the ways such records can be used for a more balanced view of the state.
Speaker Bio
Sayyid Muhammad Farid (he/him/his) received his Ph.D. in Persian Language & Literature from the University of Tehran, Iran. He is Professor in Department of Persian Language & Literature & Director Centre for Iqbal Studies at University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. His Ph.D. thesis, published in 2010 in Iran, was based on a manuscript of a Persian poet from the Mughal era, Munir Lahori (1610-1644). Farid has completed 42 research publications, mostly addressing the history of the Mughal period. He has supervised eight Ph.D. and twenty-seven MPhil theses. His most recent research concerns texts in Persian from the period of Ranjit Singh’s kingdom, which he is working on while at UBC as a Visiting Professor.
Anne Murphy (she/they) received her Ph.D. from Columbia University. She teaches in the Department of History at UBC. They are a cultural historian whose work focuses on the Punjab region of India and Pakistan, with interests in language and literary cultures; the history of the Punjabi language in South Asia and beyond; religious community formations in the early modern and modern periods; oral history; commemoration; historiography; and material culture studies. Her current research concerns modern Punjabi literature in the Indian and Pakistani Punjabs and in the broader Punjabi Diaspora. They are also interested in the early modern history of Punjabi’s emergence as a literary language.