Friday, December 2, 2011

Maulana Azad Library and Beyond

The truth is, conducting research in Aligarh is tough ... especially for women. While men might be affected by political unrest, etc., women have to deal with cultural expectations and behaviors that make it hard to get the job done. This recent review of the research experience by Amber Abbas, Department of History, The University of Texas at Austin, may help you make up your mind about living and working in Aligarh. I know that I could have used some material located in the Maulana Azad Library, but I also know how exhausted I was by the end of my dissertation fellowship. So.

If you go, this write up of Maulana Azad Library resources by Peter Knapczyk, Department of History, The University of Texas at Austin, will be useful.

Hap tip to Sagar, A South Asia Research Journal.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Editing and Research Assistance for South Asianists

Re-posted from H-ASIA:

From: Maggie Ronkin

Dear H-Asia Colleagues and Friends,

I am a South Asianist, chiefly a Pakistanist, who is starting a client-centered communications consultancy in Washington, DC. Over more than two decades, I have acquired academic training and expertise to handle a range of assignments focusing on non-Western topics and requiring skills pertinent to the qualitative social sciences and humanities. I welcome your work involving research; editing and proofreading of papers, proposals, and publications; production and promotion of events, and special assignments. I can Skype and travel. I co-edited three volumes in applied sociolinguistics for a major U.S. university press and Mouton de Gruyter and co-organized two international conferences. More recently, I edited for Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard University authors in anthropology, literature, and women’sstudies; produced a proposal for a U.S.-South Asian educational partnership; launched a U.S.-South Asian videoconferencing initiative in development studies, and freelanced other assignments. On my 2011 visit to South Asia, I completed exploratory research on constructions of African-Pakistani identities and delivered a lecture series in applied sociolinguistics.

For an appointment to discuss your project, please email me at
ronkinm@hotmail.com.

Maggie Ronkin
Washington, D.C.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

South Asian American Digital Archive

The collections in the South Asia American Digital Archive (SAADA) represent members of the South Asian diaspora who have settled in the United States, including those who trace their heritage to Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the many South Asian diaspora communities across the globe. The digital archives include the collections on Dalip Singh Saund, Early Immigration, Early Student Life, Hindustan Gadar Party, HipHopistan, India Alert, India Forum (California), Indian Emergency, Kerala Catholic Association, Lord of The Universe Society (LOTUS), Reflections on America, South Asian American Voting Youth (SAAVY), and Sudhindra Bose.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Indian Memory Project

"The Indian Memory Project is an attempt to trace the history of India, its people, professions, development, traditions, cultures, settlements and cities through pictures found in personal family albums and archives. It was founded in February 2010, by Anusha S Yadav."

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

This and That

I'm happy to announce that I successfully defended my dissertation, "The Spatialization of Knowledge and Power at the Astronomical Observatories of Sawai Jai Singh II, c. 1721-1743 CE," this semester and am moving onto new and hopefully better things. I have a stack of research notes and tips that I never got around to adding to this blog. I'm going to take a few weeks off to work on a non-academic project, after which I'll come back and do some work on this place.

Do you ever wonder if you're the only one who doesn't know how to find/access the Jesuit archives in Vanves? Good news: you're not alone. I get the most hits from searches related to those archives. In second place are searches for information about research visas and visa renewals. In third place are searches related to Persian manuscripts. The only people who ever e-mail directly with questions are people with questions about visas. I guess that tells us something about the frustration and anxiety surrounding research visas for India.

I'll be back at the end of May 2011.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Libraries in India

WebJunction's list of libraries in India.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

LOC Asian Reading Room

From the website of the Library of Congress Asian Reading Room:

"The Asian Reading Room is the primary public access point for researchers seeking to use the Asian collections of the Library of Congress in the many languages of Asia. The reading room covers the area from the South Asian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to China, Japan, Korea, and Mongolia. With over 2.8 million books, periodicals and newspapers, a large number of manuscripts, and electronic media, the collections are the most comprehensive sources of Asian language materials outside of Asia. Area Specialists and Reference Librarians provide in-depth reference assistance on questions concerning Asia."

http://www.loc.gov/rr/asian/