Seema Alavi

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Seema Alavi is an Indian historian. She is a professor of history at Ashoka University, India and specializes in medieval and early modern South Asia.

Contents

Career

Alavi completed her doctorate in history from the University of Cambridge, and has been the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship, as well as fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute, at Harvard University, and the Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge. [1] She is an editor with Modern Asian Studies . [2] She was a professor of history at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, India, and has also taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University and the University of Delhi. She currently teaches at Ashoka University, India where she is currently a professor of history. [1]

Writing

Alavi published Sepoys and the Company: Tradition and Transition in Northern India, 1770–1830 (Oxford University Press, 1995), [3] which studied the formation of the Bengal Army by the East India Company in India, during 1770 to 1830. It was developed from her doctoral dissertation at Cambridge University, which was titled, North Indian military culture in transition. [4] The book was reviewed in The Indian Economic and Social History Review by Michael H. Fisher, [5] and in the Journal of Asian Studies , by Douglas M. Peers. [6]

In 2001, along with historian Muzaffar Alam, she published A European Experience of the Mughal Orient: The I'jaz-i Arsalani (Oxford University Press), which was the first English translation of Persian letters written by Antoine-Louis-Henri Polier, an 18th-century Swiss adventurer and traveler. [7] The letters were acquired by the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, which commissioned the translation from Alam and Alavi. [8] Their translation was reviewed in Reviews in History by P. J. Marshall, [8] in The Indian Historical Review, by Raziuddin Aquil, [9] and in The International History Review by Robert Travers.

In 2002, Alavi edited The Eighteenth Century in India, as part of Oxford University Press' series of Debates in Indian History and Society, consisting of key documents and debates in 18th century Indian historiography. [10] It contained contributions from Irfan Habib, Bernard S. Cohn, P.J. Marshall, and C.A. Bayly. [10] In 2008, Alavi published Islam and Healing: Loss and Recovery of an Indo-Muslim Medical Tradition, 1600–1900 (Palgrave Macmillan), which studied the history of medicine and care in Islamic traditions in India. [11] The book was reviewed by Farhat Husain in Contributions to Indian Sociology , [12] by Projit Bihari Mukharji in Social History of Medicine, [13] by Francis Robinson in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, [14] and Anne Marie Moulin in the International Journal of Asian Studies . [15]

In 2015, Alavi published Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the age of Empire (Harvard University Press), which is a study of five Islamic scholars who were pursued by British colonial authorities after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and their work in establishing a global network of scholarship subsequently, spanning Cairo, Mecca, and Istanbul. [16] The book received an honorable mention in the 2016 Albert Hourani Book Award, by the Middle East Studies Association. [16] [17]

Alavi has also published research in Modern Asian Studies , [17] The Indian Economic and Social History Review , [18] and the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. [19]

Bibliography

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References

  1. 1 2 "Prof. Seema Alavi – Department of History, University of Delhi" . Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  2. ↑ "Seema Alavi". Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  3. ↑ Alavi, Seema (1998). The Sepoys and the Company: Tradition and Transition in Northern India, 1770–1830. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-564595-8.
  4. ↑ Alavi, Seema (1 January 1991). North Indian military culture in transition : c. 1770 – 1830 (Thesis thesis). University of Cambridge. doi:10.17863/cam.19458.
  5. ↑ Fisher, Michael (1996). "Book Reviews : SEEMA ALAVI, The Sepoys and the Company: Tradition and Transition in Northern India, 1770–1830, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1995, pp. xvi + 315, Rs. 390". The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 33 (2): 221–223. doi:10.1177/001946469603300207. ISSN   0019-4646. S2CID   144296220.
  6. ↑ Peers, Douglas M. (May 1997). "The Sepoys and the Company: Tradition and Transition in Northern India, 1770–1830. By Seema Alavi. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995. xvi, 315 pp. Rs. 390; $38.00 (cloth)". The Journal of Asian Studies. 56 (2): 513–514. doi:10.2307/2646290. ISSN   1752-0401. JSTOR   2646290. S2CID   161440728.
  7. ↑ Antoine-Louis-Henri), Polier (colonel de (2007). A European Experience of the Mughal Orient: The Ijaz-I Arsalani (Persian Letters, 1773–1779) of Antoine-Louis Henri Polier. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-569187-0.
  8. 1 2 "A European Experience of the Mughal Orient: The I'jaz-i Arsalani (Persian Letters, 1773–1779) of Antoine-Louis-Henri Polier | Reviews in History". reviews.history.ac.uk. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  9. ↑ Aquil, Raziuddin (2003). "A European Experience of the Mughal Orient, the I'jaz-i Arsalani (Persian Letters, 1773–1779) of Antoine-Louis Henri Polier, Translated and with an Introduction". Indian Historical Review. 30 (1–2): 210–213. doi:10.1177/037698360303000215. ISSN   0376-9836. S2CID   142427642.
  10. 1 2 Alavi, Seema (27 September 2007). The Eighteenth Century in India. Debates in Indian History and Society. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-569201-3.
  11. ↑ Alavi, Seema (2008). Islam and Healing. doi:10.1057/9780230583771. ISBN   978-1-349-36391-9.
  12. ↑ Hasan, Farhat (2010). "Seema Alavi, Islam and Healing: Loss and Recovery of an Indo-Muslim Medical Tradition, 1600–1900. Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2007. xiii + 384 pp. Notes, glossary, bibliography, index. Rs 695 (hardback)". Contributions to Indian Sociology. 44 (1–2): 183–185. doi:10.1177/006996671004400210. ISSN   0069-9667. S2CID   144212822.
  13. ↑ Mukharji, Projit Bihari (1 August 2009). "Islam and Healing: Loss and Recovery of an Indo-Muslim Medical Tradition, 1600–1900". Social History of Medicine. 22 (2): 400–402. doi:10.1093/shm/hkp020. ISSN   0951-631X.
  14. ↑ Robinson, Francis; Holloway, Royal (1 January 2010). "Seema ALAVI. Islam and Healing: Loss and Recovery of an Indo-Muslim Medical Tradition, 1600–1900. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. xiii + 384 pp., ISBN: 81-7824-195-1 £55.00". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 53 (5): 770–774. doi:10.1163/156852010X539177. ISSN   1568-5209.
  15. ↑ Moulin, Anne Marie (2010). "Islam and Healing: Loss and Recovery of an Indo-Muslim Medical Tradition, 1600–1900. By Seema Alevi. Houndmills, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Pp. xiii + 384. ISBN 10: 0230554385; 13: 9780230554382". International Journal of Asian Studies. 7 (1): 126–127. doi:10.1017/S1479591409990350. ISSN   1479-5922. S2CID   143774767.
  16. 1 2 "Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Empire – Seema Alavi". www.hup.harvard.edu. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  17. 1 2 "Middle East Studies Association – MESA Book Awards – Seema Alavi". Middle East Studies Association. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  18. ↑ Alavi, Seema (2005). "Unani medicine in the nineteenth-century public sphere: Urdu texts and the Oudh Akhbar". The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 42 (1): 101–129. doi:10.1177/001946460504200104. ISSN   0019-4646. S2CID   144886114.
  19. ↑ Alavi, Seema (2020). "The 1852 Centaur Shipwreck: Law, politics and society in the Persian Gulf". Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. 21 (3). doi:10.1353/cch.2020.0034. ISSN   1532-5768. S2CID   229355982.
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