“Being Muslim: Ghalib’s Poetic Illuminations in Post-1857 Delhi” 2020 Annual Lecture Ayesha Jalal, Professor of History at Tufts University By Mejgan Massoumi
Opening her talk with the perennial question, “who is a Muslim?”, Professor Jalal shed light on the ways in which being Muslim was defined by the religious categories of the modern bureaucratic state. To unpack this discussion and explore the implications of the 1857 rebellion against British rule in India, Professor Jalal presented some of the writings of the preeminent Urdu and Persian poet, Mirza Muhammad Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869). MORE ABOUT THE ANNUAL LECTURE >>
Contextualizing the Conflict in Afghanistan Days after the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, we hosted a panel to contextualize the crisis and conflict, which was moderated by Mejgan Massoumi and featured Halima Kazem-Stojanovic and Ahmad Rashid Salim. We plan to host an ongoing conversation on Afghanistan in the 2021-22 academic year. We are also actively involved in raising funds to sponsor Scholars-at-Risk (SAR) from the region. If you are interested in supporting SAR, please contact Lalita du Perron (lalita@stanford.edu). 11
