English prof, Oxford. Author and broadcaster. Early modern literature, history, and cross-cultural encounters. Fuelled by tea.
#CourtingIndia
#ThisLittleWorld
This is such an honour and privilege, and even more so to be considered alongside the five extraordinary other books and writers who were on the shortlist.
The British Academy is thrilled to announce that the winner of this year's
#BritishAcademyBookPrize
for Global and Cultural Understanding is 'Courting India' by Nandini Das
@rentravailer
, published by Bloomsbury. Congratulations!
16 March is the official publication day for
#CourtingIndia
, and I am very grateful to Thomas Roe for being more dramatically miserable about his lot in life than I could ever aspire to be.
My mother died last night. She had a stroke, but covid meant that she died a continent away, and I won't be able to attend the funeral. She was sharp, funny, superbly brave. A high school teacher, a fierce advocate of women in STEM subjects. Reader of books and teller of tales.
I'm on a long train journey with a scarily chirpy train catering person trying to sell mince pies with every coffee, so I thought I'd amuse myself by sharing the covers of Courting India, look how gorgeous!
So it looks like things may get a bit busier. It also means I'm going to end up acquiring a bunch of beautiful notebooks and then not have the heart to scribble in any of them, doesn't it?
#ThisLittleWorld
🟡 Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire –
@rentravailer
A profound new history of one of the most important encounters in the history of colonialism: the British arrival in India in the early seventeenth century.
Read more:
Delighted to receive the Oxford VC's Innovation and Engagement award with this wonderful team, but there's a much larger crowd of friends -- through
@ERC_TIDE
and beyond -- without whom this project would not have been possible. Thanks to all of them too!
@engfac
@ERC_Research
I'm a day late to this, but the wonderfully thoughtful and generous review of
#CourtingIndia
in New York Times will stay with me for a while. Thank you
@zurtalab
My programme on Renaissance cabinets of curiosity is on BBC4 at 8:00 this evening, feast your eyes on chameleons, Powhatan's cloak, and an ever-so-slightly intimidating snake.
Now that we are unpacking boxes in new offices, it seems like a good time to say that I am delighted to be joining
@engfac
and
@ExeterCollegeOx
from 1 October. Looking forward to staying in touch with
@sotauol
and my fantastic students and colleagues there.
Our second entry this week to the
#CundillHistoryPrize
2023 longlist spotlight is 'Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire' by Nandini Das (
@rentravailer
), published by
@BloomsburyBooks
.
Discover the full 2023 longlist here:
Delighted to be shortlisted for the
#DuffCooperPrize
. 2022 winner
@AnnaLandmark
's "The Restless Republic" is going to be a tough act to follow for any shortlist!
Congratulations to Nandini Das (
@rentravailer
) on being shortlisted for the
#DuffCooperPrize
with Courting India 🇮🇳
Founded in 1956, the prize celebrates the best in non-fiction writing.
Find out more:
1/ We are thrilled to announce the publication of TIDE's first major collaborative output -- the online, open access resource, TIDE: Keywords. Check it out here
#TIDEKeywords
#twitterstorians
#twitterlit
We gathered to remember my friend and colleague, Jenni Nuttall
@Stylisticienne
today, and on my way, as I walked past Oxford's magnolia trees bursting into bloom in crisp, cold sunshine, I thought I would have liked to have shared this with her.
If you're thinking there's simply not enough of the Principal Navigations on TV these days (I know we all do), turn to BBC 4 at 10pm.
#Tudor
#TIDEtravels
English exile, Jesuit priest, Marathi epic poet -- join me this evening to uncover the world of Thomas Stephens, first recorded English man in India, and epic poet of the Bible, 50 years before Milton, on
@BBCRadio3
My rave review of
@rentravailer
's brilliant study of Sir Thomas Roe &his Embassy to Jahangir: "The embassy may have been a failure, but Das’s book about it is a triumph, of writing & scholarship
Courting India — the unpromising origins of British power -
I've looked at these lists online before, but seeing
#CourtingIndia
as an
@nytimesbooks
Editor's Choice is quite something. Thank you, NY Times editors with excellent taste in early modern history.
Thrilled to share that COURTING INDIA by Nandini Das (
@rentravailer
) has been selected as an Editors' Choice by
@nytimesbooks
! 🌟 You can read their glowing review here:
This Sunday on Radio 3, 6.45 UK time, a stellar company helps me tell the story of Robert Greene and the precarious lives of university graduates. Oh yes, that other young whippersnapper of a playwright makes a brief appearance-- what was his name again?
Jenni Nuttall
@Stylisticienne
was a wonderful scholar and teacher, and a colleague and friend on whom I could always depend for home truths, thoroughly practical advice, and a shared supply of chocolate to tide us through long hours of admissions interviews. She is so, so missed.
I'm so sorry to be missing the upcoming
@RSAorg
conference in March, where I was to deliver the
@RSAorg
/
@SRSRenSoc
keynote. Visa processing is a convoluted journey, and scholars from the global south will know the unpredictability and stress it introduces in all our commitments.
As someone who often wondered about this while working on early modern epic and romance (while trying to find polite ways to respond to people who wanted to know why I wasn't doing postcolonial literatures instead) -- welcome. This is our field too.
I’m a woman of color studying medieval England and Middle English romances. What the hell am I doing in this field? Every time I write or research I’m reminded on how much I don’t belong.
#latenightthoughts
#AcademicTwitter
#medievaltwitter
We've been having loads of fun with Joscelyn, an amazing secretary hand font developed by the incredibly talented Peter Baker. It's based on the main hand of Corpus Christi College MS 488 and is freely available at . Check out those ligatures!
If you've not been following
#RaceB4Race
, do it now. Incredibly heartening to get a sense of some of the most important, necessary work on early modern studies and race going on at the moment.
I'm delighted that we've got the go-ahead for this. It's based on our
@ERC_TIDE
Beacon fellowship for teachers, which was one of the most fulfilling highlights of the entire project. Hopefully, this funding will allow
@JJtodd1966
and me to take that discussion out to many others.
So, if you're wondering what to do this weekend and had liked Hakluyt and Tales of Tudor Travellers on
@BBCFOUR
, there's this thing on
@BBCRadio3
on Sunday:
Thurs 8 Feb, 6.30, Professor Nandini Das
@rentravailer
will talk on her new book Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire WINNER OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE, A SPECTATOR, WATERSTONES, BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE, PROSPECT AND HISTORY TODAY BOOK OF THE YEAR
Doctoral studentship klaxon: Applications now open for Leverhulme-funded DPhil at Oxford on Sir Thomas Roe's Middle Eastern diplomacy and book collection. Twitter friends, please spread the word!
You can hear from Nandini Das
@rentravailer
- winner of the
@BritishAcademy_
Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding at our first event of 2024.
Monday 15 Jan at 6pm online and in person. Free - book your place here
Members of learned societies, librarians and archivists, please respond to the "consultation" on this phenomenally risky move. Collective voice counts.
Destroying these originals is a seriously bad idea. Digitization expends one form of access but destruction of originals would end another form. The cost of storage of originals, & the cost of digital access should be regarded as part of the infrastructure of an open society.
If you're in the vicinity of Oxford and wondering about what to do next Friday when you're not practising your oath-taking for the Coronation, come and join us
@WaterstonesOxf
:
It is also about those who often get written out -- ordinary men and women of both nations, with their small ambitions, hopes and schemes, the circumstances that put them together, and the prejudices that divided them across fault-lines of class, gender, and race.
Early morning scenes at Westminster -- Roe queues up for an audience with Emperor Jahangir in Rothenstein's 1920s mural, which is on the US cover of
#CourtingIndia
, while
@callanjd
and I look ridiculously pleased to catch up with each other. Essay
@BBCRadio3
coming soon!
Thursday 7th September🗓️
Courting India by Nandini Das
@rentravailer
in conversation with
@kavpuri
A new history of one of the most important encounters in the history of colonialism: the British arrival in India in the early seventeenth century
Every winter, when the temperature was still low enough to make an outing pleasurable even in the general humid heat of eastern India, the Das household would gear up for an annual expedition. It wasn't anywhere very far: we rarely ever managed holidays. (1/11)
Exciting news! We are delighted to announce the appointment of the General Editors and Advisory Board for a new series of
#Shakespeare
editions 📚
More details here:
TFW a national gallery quotes £180+£90 + VAT per image for physical and electronic image permissions. Beginning to regret using images in this article. I'm lucky to have a grant, but how prohibitive is this for independent scholars, ECRs, and those without funding?
Academics
#twitterstorians
#twitterlit
-- long-term or even 2-3 month library fellowships are tricky for anyone with childcare or carer responsibilities. The upheaval itself can be impossible to handle. Anyone come across any creative solutions that we can collectively push?
If all this early spring sunshine is a bit disconcerting,
@BBCRadio3
has the answer. Starting tonight (Monday, 1 March), I'll be chasing the rain across the globe through our 5 senses, with 4 brilliant co-conspirators.
I wrote about this extraordinary exhibition of South Asian miniatures in
@Apollo_magazine
. Those in the UK, if you're anywhere near Milton Keynes, do not miss this!
Look what arrived in the post today! Thanks so much to
@RachelJWillie
and
@GaborGelleri
-- really looking forward to waving this at students. So many absolutely excellent essays!
A stunning, angry, moving plenary from
@PretiTaneja
-- writer as translator, writing and being-in-the-middle -- linguistically, culturally. So glad we will have her as our visiting writer for
@ERC_TIDE
next year!
Free lecture:
Nandini Das
@rentravailer
will speak about her latest publication, covering the period of the Mughal Empire. This will be partnered with the newly conserved, beautiful Mughal Album.
🗓️Thurs 7 March
🕐1–2pm GMT
Weston Library/Online
If you are in London this Thursday -- join
@kavpuri
and me at
@StanfordsTravel
for a journey to Mughal India with the first English ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe.
Join Nandini Das
@rentravailer
,
@StanfordsTravel
in conversation with Kavita Puri
@kavpuri
to talk about her ground-breaking new history Courting India.
📅 Thursday 7th September
🕖 7– 8.30PM
📍 Stanfords Bookshop, Covent Garden
Get your tickets here:
tfw you're invited to write an essay for an interdisciplinary special issue on 'empire', then told that "For editorial reasons, the references to empire have been deleted and replaced with the highly specific nested organizational construct to which they refer case by case."
Where better to have this conversation than
@britishlibrary
, where many long, over-caffeinated days were spent trying not to snigger too loudly in the reading rooms over Thomas Roe's latest woes in early seventeenth century Surat. Come and join us!
Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire
3PM SAT 29 APRIL
@britishlibrary
@rentravailer
and
@ProfSunnySingh
explore the fascinating & far-reaching history of early 17th century England and India
Individual Tickets - £10:
Mughal historians, I'm trying to locate the provenance of this gorgeous early seventeenth century painting but can't find my notes on it. Anyone able to point me in the right direction?
Some of you may remember me gnashing my teeth over image reproduction permissions a few months ago. It's very good to see the essay -- complete with images -- now out and freely available from Renaissance Studies
Oh look, it's our fault again for having worse negotiating skills than our male colleagues. Such a relief to know it's easily fixed -- just need to listen to wiser "supervisors"!
Female scholars are less likely to be successful in negotiating job offers than their male counterparts, but support from academic supervisors helps to improve their bargaining skills, according to a new study
What *not* to do. A reminder that as restrictions relax and vaccinated arms are tanned in the spring sunshine here, many of your Indian colleagues and students are going through a living nightmare that is not the least bit reduced by the fact that they are here, not there.
As I struggled to deal with the impact of COVID on my family members in India, I got delayed by a day for submitting my reviews for a conference & I got a message from a senior reviewer with the blurb below. My humble request to everyone - pls don't say this to anyone ever! [1/n]
Humayun called books "his true companions" & took a portable library wherever he went, kept on wooden chests carried by special library camels. He was overjoyed when two camels carrying his "personal imperial books," lost at the battle of the Qipchaq Pass in 1550 turned up again.
I am so incredibly proud and delighted that
@emilylsteve
@engfac
is now Dr Stevenson, with a stupendously exciting thesis on Richard Hakluyt's networks. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with her on
@ERC_TIDE
for the last three years.
@rentravailer
’s ‘Shakespeare’s Rival’ is pick of the week in today’s
@guardian
! Tune in at 6.45pm tomorrow for the great bananaman as you’ve never heard him before
When the hipster commuter next to me singing the virtues of
#bulletproofcoffee
doesn't realise that he has been beaten to it by a seventeenth century chaplain's translation of an Arabic manuscript -- my prep-reading for
@ERC_TIDE
today.
We are thrilled to host a conversation with
@ERC_TIDE
's
@rentravailer
and
@PretiTaneja
, talking about creative work & research. TIDE is rethinking the history of migration, and we hear about their schools work, open-access Keywords, & online creative salon
Sneak peek into
@ERC_TIDE
's next open access volume, Lives in Transit in Early Modern England -- out (hopefully) in early spring 2022! Luisa de Carvajal is one of the 24 "figures in motion" followed by the essays in the volume.
‘[I]n my opinion’, wrote Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza (1566-1614) from London to her friend Inés de la Asunción, ‘only to please God can one tolerate living here’.
Delighted that Mat Dimmock's wonderful volume on Richard Eden and West Africa is now out in the Cambridge Elements of Travel Writing series co-edited by
@youngs_tim
and me. Even more delighted that it's free to access till 29 July!
This Sunday on Radio 3, 6.45 UK time, a stellar company helps me tell the story of Robert Greene and the precarious lives of university graduates. Oh yes, that other young whippersnapper of a playwright makes a brief appearance-- what was his name again?
It's great to get my hands on a paper copy finally -- 'Time and memory in Carthage' in Renaissance Studies follows Dido and Carthage from Timaeus of Tauromenium to contemporary Tunisian writer Fawzi Mellah.
We are very excited to launch our online mini-course for KS3 teachers 'Matters of Belonging' a shorter version of our BEACON Fellowship, this 4-part introduction to the early history of
#Empire
&
#Belonging
can help support your work in
#English
&
#History
classrooms.
Enroute to Oxford to deliver this Network Globe to The Bodleian Library. It will be exhibited alongside Early Modern travel books curated by
@emilylsteve
&
@lauren_working
at The Weston Library
With enormous thanks to both and to
@rentravailer
and The Bodleian for the invitation
But this history is not just of Roe and the first English embassy to India, or even of the English East India Company's shaky, tentative foothold in South Asia.
Very sad to hear about the death of actor Irrfan Khan. I was looking forward to introducing students to his magnificent performance in Vishal Bharadwaj's Maqbool, an adaptation of
#Macbeth
, this term. If you haven't seen it, do watch it.
On the train back from
@BSA2019
#BSASwansea2019
, and still thinking about
@ProfKFH
's plenary -- beautiful, moving, and stunning in its intellectual generosity. It was a real privilege to hear it.
Very sorry to hear about Mark Ormrod's death. His England's Immigrants project was an inspiration for
@ERC_TIDE
and a model of exemplary scholarship that reached beyond the academy in wonderful, productive ways.
We are sorry to announce the death of Mark Ormrod, a much loved teacher and colleague who was the first Dean of our Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Read more about Mark's life:
@YorkHistoryDept
One of the joys of online seminars is knowing that other commitments do not mean that you have to miss out on important conversations and celebrations.
@ProfKFH
, looking forward to watching this and raising a glass to you later.
Hi Twitter, please appreciate my grandma bowling a strike in her saree, and then proceeding to ensure her mask covers her nose
#QueenShit
, if you ask me! 👸🏽
On a day otherwise filled with writing student reports, I've just received news of a brilliant early career researcher's success. It's amazing how quickly our mood can change. I don't think OxCort has ever had anyone grin so helplessly at its screen before!
We start tonight in India -- more specifically, Kolkata -- with music and the monsoon rain. . This one's dedicated to my mother, who taught me to listen to its many sounds, and who died in January this year.