History

The historiography of nineteenth-century South Asia has often framed religious production and identity through the lens of liberal reform, rooted in colonial-era constructions of religious modernity. But from within this limited scope other motives and patterns of cultural formation remain omitted. Alternatively, this article investigates the case of the Svāminārāyaṇ community’s development in western India by turning to a source base of previously unused records, alongside a study of the local dynamics during the early nineteenth century. The historical reading demonstrates that the community’s institutionalisation in this era signified an ‘elastic’ model of emergence: it attached with the early modern culture of the Puṣṭimārg community to ease stretching in a different direction, forming a devotional vision in relation to the contemporary political, social, and economic dynamics of Gujarat. The Svāminārāyaṇ community’s founder Sahajānand Svāmī, fundamentally underscored the quality of suppleness as he forged a community to sustain his model of devotion in Gujarat.

This paper, presented at the University of Washington's REECAS Conference, analyzes constructions of slavic identity, using Rebecca West's magnum opus, Black Lamb, Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia.  Themes discussed are how Western Europeans like British-born author Rebecca West simultaneously idealize and stereotype people living in the Balkans during the 19th and 20th centuries. A key component of slavic identity, per R. West, is that Slavs know how to suffer.

Scholars often have love affairs. British-born Arthur Evans (1851-1941) was married only once, faithful to his wife by all accounts, but he did have two love affairs. His first was with the Southern Slavs, which began when he traveled to the Balkans as a young man and continued during his career as a journalist based in the Dalmatian city of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik) between 1877 and 1882. His second was a lifelong affair with the ancient Mediterranean world, especially the island of Crete, where he earned fame as the excavator of the Bronze Age civilization known ever since as " Minoan. " This dissertation employs the career of Arthur Evans as the fulcrum to examine the " imagined pasts " of the Balkans, Greece, and Europe at the start of the 20th century before rigorous archaeological exploration, and seeks to connect Evans's lifelong involvement in the history and politics of the Balkans with his more widely known expertise in the Bronze Age Aegean. While his excavations on Crete (1900-1931) earned Evans a knighthood and multiple biographers, there has been less effort to understand the relationship between these two portions of his career. Previous studies of Evans have focused, for understandable reasons, on his " discovery " of the Minoans, which he himself termed " that earliest of European civilizations."

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2021.This dissertation employs the career of British archaeologist Arthur Evans as the fulcrum to examine the concept of “modern antiquities,” which Evans defined as the study of ancient customs and societies best represented in the Balkans, and which he understood as essential to understanding the ancient past. The dissertation seeks to connect Evans’ more widely known expertise in the Bronze Age Aegean (circa 3000 – 1200 BCE) with his experience in the Slavic Balkans in the late 19th century, to show he participated in the construction of European and Balkan identities, including an imagined past of Europe. Previous studies of Evans have focused, for understandable reasons, on his discovery on Crete of the physical remains of Minoan civilization, which he himself termed “that earliest of European civilizations.” Evans’ first career began in the Balkans in the 1870s and included a five-year residence in Dubrovnik (now in Croatia), while he w...