Global Studies E-Resources & Library Guides at Columbia under COVID-19, Part 1

  A roundup on Global Studies e-resources (digital collections and e-reference works) and library guides new to Columbia during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020-2021, Part 1: Africa, Middle East & Islam, and Russia, Eurasia & East Europe. AFRICA Recent events over the past year in the United States and Africa prompted Yuusuf Caruso,the African Studies Librarian, […]

Read More…

Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC)

On Human Rights Day, we might devote attention to the many groups that have been protesting against recent shifts in the understanding of “citizenship” in India. The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016, was designed to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 to recognize specific types of illegal immigrants, segregated by religion and country of origin. It was […]

Read More…

Archives and Human Rights: International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10th: an Interview with Lucas Massuco (AHDA fellow, ISHR, CU, Memory Museum, Argentina)

For the upcoming occasion of International Human Rights Day on December 10th, I sat down with Lucas Massuco, 2020 Fellow at the Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability (AHDA) Program at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR, Columbia University); Institutional Coordinator at the Memory Museum (Municipality of Rosario, Argentina), and Political Scientist […]

Read More…

“Strategies of Presenting Text and Illustrations: Turning the Pages of a Sixteenth Century Book of Wisdom”: An Interview with Seher Agarwala

  Last week, I “sat” down via Zoom with Seher Agarwala, a PhD student in the Art History and Archeology Department at Columbia , and asked her a few questions related to Indo-Persian manuscripts, the Muslim World Manuscript project and her own dissertation, which addresses the politics and ethics of 16th c. aesthetics in the […]

Read More…

Persian Lithographs: Jām-i Jam: “The World Revealing Goblet”, An interview with Zeinab Azarbadegan

As part of the Muslim World Manuscript project’s scholarly engagement plan, I sat down with History PhD candidate Zeinab Azarbadegan and spoke to her about her interests in the history of the book, specifically her interests in Persian lithographs, and in the Nafisi book collection at the Columbia University Libraries. Our conversation took us on […]

Read More…

Black Lives Matter International

  “You watched my brother die.  That could have been me.  I am my brother’s keeper. You in the United Nations are your brothers’ and sisters’ keepers in America, and you have the power to help us get justice for my brother George Floyd.  I am asking you to help him.  I am asking you […]

Read More…

Finding the women in Columbia’s Judaica collections

When searching for women in early manuscript collections, it may seem as if they are only found without agency; adjacent to the men in their lives.  However, when I began looking for traces of women in Columbia’s rare Judaica collection, I was delighted to discover that they have a presence throughout the collections. I began […]

Read More…

On World Refugee Day 2020 — Rohingyas

One of many current global refugee crises is that of the Rohingyas. A Muslim group long resident in Myanmar, many Rohingyas have been displaced as refugees to South Asia (and other regions), most especially Bangladesh and India. Rohingyas have also experienced lack of welcome in South Asian countries. While often viewed in news reports as a […]

Read More…

The MWM Project: An Interview with Shabbir Agha Abbas; Poring over Manuscripts for a broader and more vibrant understanding of Islamic Studies

This past week, I interviewed Shabbir Agha Abbas, a graduate student at Columbia University (MEI/MESAAS) working on Islamic Law and Shari’a Studies. Shabbir holds an MA in Religious Studies from Rutgers University and has been involved in the Muslim World Manuscript project, helping to catalog and describe manuscripts in the RBML collection. Our lively conversation, […]

Read More…