2020 – Oceanic Circularities: The Indian Ocean in the Modern World

Panel 1: Thinking with the Indian Ocean

“On Mobile Histories: Circulation and Conversion in the Indian Ocean World” – Dr. Fahad Bishara, University of Virginia

“The Ends of the Indian Ocean: Notes on Boundaries and Affinities Across Time” – Dr. Jeremy Prestholdt, University of California, San Diego

“Decentering the Indian Ocean: Interstitial Groups and the Margins of Postcolonial Statebuilding” – Shiza Abbasi and Dr. Uday Chandra, Georgetown University in Qatar

Panel 2: Literary Aesthetics of Relation and Creolization in the Indian Ocean

Chair – Dr. Firat Oruc, Georgetown University in Qatar

“Al-Inkishafi,” Swahili Poetic Form, and the Indian Ocean Imaginary” – Dr. Michelle Decker, Scripps College

“Creolized Geographies, Entangled Histories: The Mascarene Region and the Intersecting Stories of the Indian Ocean World” – Dr. Emmanuel Bruno Jean-Francois, Pennsylvania State University

“Literary Construction of the Indian Ocean for the Reform of Dynastic States/Communities vs. the Colonial Construction of Modern National Communities in `A’isha Taymur’s Work of Fiction” – Dr. Mervat Hatem, Howard University

“Transoceanic Circularities and Creole Indias: Ari Gautier’s Pondicherry Novels” – Dr. Ananya Jahanara Kabir, King’s College London

“Spectral Labor” – Dr. Neelofer Qadir, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Panel 3: The Persian Gulf in the Indian Ocean

Chair – Dr. Anto Mohsin, Northwestern University in Qatar

“India and the Gulf: Overview of a 4,600-Year Connection” – Dr. James Onley, Qatar National Library

“Thinking Between and Beyond “Nodes”: Cross -Gulf Connections from 1870 -1940” – Dr. Lindsey Stephenson, Princeton University

“Space, Imperialism, and Memorialization: The Political Economy of Slave Markets in the 19th Century Western Indian Ocean” – Dr. Emilio Ocampo Eibenschutz, Cornell University

“Racial Identity and Constructs of Blackness in the Early Twentieth Century Gulf” – Al-Johara Al Thani, New York University

Panel 4: Soundscapes

Chair – Dr. Maurice Jackson, Georgetown University

“FM Radio and the Malayali Diaspora in Qatar: At Home Overseas?” – Irene Promodh, Georgetown University in Qatar

“Audible Love: “Dubai Letter” and the Transnational Subjects of Music” – Dr. Bindu Menon, Azim Premji University

“Gender and Music in Zanzibar” – Alghaliya Al-Qubaisi, Georgetown University in Qatar

Panel 5: Oman and the Swahili Coast

Chair – Dr. Rogaia Abusharaf, Georgetown University in Qatar

“‘They never thought a Yankee could do so’: Sayyid Saʿīd and the Anglo-American Rivalry in the Western Indian Ocean, 1800-1856” – Dr. Nicholas Roberts, University of Notre Dame

“The Role of Diasporic Political Ideas from Zanzibar in the Omani Renaissance, 1970 -Present” – Dr. Nate Matthew, SUNY Binghamton

“Persistence of the Umma or Vestiges of Empire?: Exploring Pathways of Ibadi Transnationalism from Oman” – Dr. Courtney Freer, London School of Economics and Political Science

Panel 6: East-West Connections

Chair – Dr. Hasan Mahmud, Northwestern University in Qatar

“In between Japan and Africa: Or, Indian Ocean world in Japanese Khanga” – Dr. Hideaki Suzuki, National Ethnographic Museum, Osaka

“Mobile Kins, Immobile Kinds: A Connected History of Matrilineal Muslims in the Oceanic Littoral” – Dr. Mahmood Kooria, Leiden University

“Towards a Polyvocal Transoceanic Memory: Antony Firingi, Henry Derozio, and Creole Bengal” – Dr. Esha Sil, University of Helsinki

Exhibiton Gulf-India Connections – Dr. James Onley, Qatar National Library

Panel 7: Slavery and Servitude

Chair – Dr. Sumayya Ahmed, University College London Qatar

“The Shortest Middle Passage: Maritime East Africa after 1873” – Dr. Edward Alpers, University of California, Los Angeles

“Slavery, Forced Labor and Mobility in the Making of the Konkan Coast” – Dr. Ananya Chakravarti, Georgetown University

““To the Slave in Bondage Bleeding”: The Reformed Church of America and the Freed Slave School in Muscat, Oman, 1896 -1901” – Dr. Karine Walther, Georgetown University in Qatar

“Liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean World: Liberation, Labor, and Indenture” – Dr. Matthew Hopper, California Polytechnic State University

Panel 8: Inter-Species Circularities

Chair – Dr. Amira Sonbol, Georgetown University in Qatar

“Eating the Indian Ocean: Metabolic Intimacies, Fish Diaspora’s and the Deep Ocean” – Mapule Mohulatsi, University of the Witwatersrand

“Of Molluscs and Men: Migrant Pearl Divers in the Indian Ocean 1880 -1925” – Dr. Tamara Fernando, Cambridge University

“The “Kakatua Dancing”: Multiple Presences and Expansions in the Indian Ocean” – Dr. Beatrice Nicolini, Catholic University, Milan

“Beasts of the Indian Ocean: The Arab-Malay poetics of Hikayat Kalilah dan Dimnah” – Dr. Nazry Bahrawi, Singapore Institute of Technology and Design

Panel 9: Moving Images

Chair – Dr. Negar Taymoorzadeh, New York University

“Was Film Noir Shaped by the Indian Ocean in the 1950s?” – Dr. Kaveh Askari, Michigan State University

“Moving Still: Bicycles in Ranchhod Oza’s Photographs of 1950s Stone Town (Zanzibar)” – Dr. Pamila Gupta, University of the Witwatersrand

“Changing Winds: Oman TV, Indian (Ocean) Films, and Piracy, 1974-1984” – Dr. Samhita Sunya, University of Virginia

“On the Shore: Indian Ocean Littoral Life in Film” – Dr. Firat Oruc, Georgetown University in Qatar

Panel 10: Imperial Cartographies and Meaning-Making

Chair – Dr. M. Reza Pirbhai, Georgetown University in Qatar

“Kua, a Swahili city under the Portuguese rule 16th-18th century” – Dr. Stéphane Pradines, Aga Khan University, London

“Messianic Mobilities? The Meccan Pilgrimage and the “Wahhabi Conspiracy” in Colonial India” – Dr. Rishad Choudhury, Oberlin College

“Connecting the Unconnected: Circularities of East African Ivory and Indian capital in the Western Indian Ocean” – Dr. Chhaya Goswami, SK Somaiya College