Dr Adrian Plau (Wellcome Collection), 'Global contexts: Jain medical recipes in early Hindi'
Abstract:
This talk will explore global contexts to medieval European medical manuscripts by looking to understudied traditions of early modern vernacular medical treatises and recipes from North India currently held by Wellcome Collection. I’ll highlight the historiography of the ‘medieval’ in global contexts and its uses in Western imperialist propaganda and contemporary orientalist discourse, Wellcome Collection’s current work with manuscript cataloguing metadata, and present examples of vernacular North Indian medical manuscripts, including early research on the first-ever medical treatise in Hindi.
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Dr Adrian Plau is Manuscript Collections Information Analyst at Wellcome Collection, working particularly with making the Collection’s global manuscripts more accessible and discoverable to wider audiences. As a 2018-2019 Wellcome Trust Research Bursary-holder, he led a project on the Wellcome Collection’s early Hindi medical manuscripts. His 2018 SOAS PhD presented a critical edition and literary study of the Sitacarit, a vernacular narrative of the seventeenth century that recounts the Ramayana epic from Sita’s perspective. His research has featured in publications such as Religions, Sikh Formations, and the Oxford History of Hinduism. He is a contributor to Digital Orientalist and writes a monthly column on Indian poetry for Asiapunkt. A 2022/23 recipient of the Headley Fellowships with the Art Fund, he is currently building a model for responsible repatriation of global manuscripts from GLAM institutions to source communities based in London.
(note: session will last an hour).
Date
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