Seminars

The Centre hosts the following lecture in Hilary 2026:

Thibaut d’Hubert (Institut für Indologie und Tibetologie, LMU, Munich): Al-Maʿná fī Baṭn al-Shāʿir: On the text-critical relevance of Fayḍī’s autobiographical comments

Abstract: Fayḍī Fayyāḍī (1547–1595), the poet laureate of the Mughal emperor Akbar, was a celebrity of his time. In addition to having prompted praises and criticism from his contemporaries throughout the Persianate world, he left a substantial body of writings on his life (prefaces in Arabic and Persian, letters, qaṣīdas) and comments about himself scattered in his poetry (rubāʿīs, ghazals, and mathnawīs). In this lecture, Thibaut d’Hubert will discuss the generic background of these autobiographical writings, how they can help us shed light on the history of the compiling of his dīwān, and what they teach us about the way Fayḍī fashioned his persona, envisioned his oeuvre, and composed his poetry.

The Centre hosts the following lecture in Hilary 2026:

Hana Navratilova (Harris Manchester College/ Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Oxford): Meidum: landscape, pyramid, graffiti, and political memory

Abstract: Graffiti are among most widespread communications of the ancient world. They voiced personal and communal concerns, religious and political ideas—yet remain undervalued, and their legacy records dispersed. The corpus of graffiti at Meidum gives an insight into the contemporary social fabric and political scope, implying that Old Kingdom precincts might be transformed into places of explicit political discourse for later generations of Egyptian elites, going beyond the social to articulating a political legitimation for a new era.