Margaret Atwood on Reviews and Footnotes

I stumbled across a collection of Margaret Atwood's essays at a used bookstore today and while perusing it two paragraphs leapt out to me:

Book reviews I think are the most difficult form for me. It's easy in them to be flip and dismissive, to make jokes at the book's expense, to sneer at the author; some papers think of this as being "controversial" or "readable." But if you're an author yourself you know how much time and effort has gone into a book, even a bad book, and you can't take it so lightly. A reviewer has a responsibility to the public, but she also has a responsibility to the book; you have to try and see and say what is actually there.

Longer critical essays are less painful. For one thing, you know they aren't going to damage sales and affect someone's livelihood, because they are usually post facto and printed in little magazines or academic journals. They also allow more room, for judicious reconsideration, for more complex evaluation than is usually possible in (for instance) The Globe and Mail, and for that luxuriant weed of academe, the footnote. If the book review leans a little towards Consumer Reports, the critical essay is perhaps more like talking to yourself. It's a way, too, of finding out what you really think.

Margaret Atwood, Second Words: Selected Critical Prose (Toronto: Anansi, 1982), 13.

A Room of One's Own

In the obituaries section of an old issue of Islamic Studies (Islamabad) [12 no.1 (1973), p. 70] A. S. Bazmee Ansari related the following about the venerable orientalist Charles A. Storey, who, for serious--or even casual--Persianists, needs no introduction (or if he does, you receive a wary look of judgement while you dart off to Encyclopaedia Iranica and read Yuri Bregel's entry on him): 

"A quiet, deep and thorough-going scholar he had almost become a recluse during the closing years of his life. He practically sealed himself up in his room in the British Museum and stoutly refused to receive visitors. Such devotees to literature are seldom found these days."

It's easy sometimes to relate to his desire to be left alone. However, Storey did die a bachelor so buyer beware.

On the Importance of Being Offended

So I spent this afternoon reading a recent book on Mughal history that I had been putting off reading because I had read earlier articles by the same scholar and found them underwhelming and lacking in substance. Having handed in my papers, and finding a comfy spot in the library, I sat down and read the first three chapters. Sadly, with each page I read I got increasingly livid--feeling disturbed and horrified by the deplorable level of scholarship. In short, I was deeply offended; not by the author's arguments, which, when one coyly appeared, mildly sidestepped any actual debate, conceding to contradictory positions in a circular logic. No, it was by the abysmal level of scholarship; assertions without evidence, incorrect citations and names, and observations that were, for a lack of a better word, unabashedly unoriginal. This was not a general survey or introductory work on Mughal history that aimed to present a summary of existing literature. No, it was the product of the scholar's PhD dissertation, which shocked me, and gave me no small pause, given how the author's supervisor was an esteemed scholar. Rarely have I been more offended by a piece of scholarship for its wanton sloppiness and intellectual anemia. I think the problem with our particular field of Islamic history is that we are no longer deeply offended by poor scholarship, happily welcoming lazy students who are more interested in making claims than doing the necessary grunt work. Instead we reserve our blinding fury for when we encounter a political or ideological position we disagree with in a work. Rather than toss meaningless labels, and here I mean the big O, perhaps we should find it a personal affront when authors attempt to insult our intelligence by not even being able to correctly cite a work, transliterate consistently in a logical manner, or maintain some coherent argument. Scholars need to stop being polite, forgiving a lack of rigor for what is rather kindly deemed as creative or innovative scholarship. Where, I ask, are our academic muḥtasibs, commanding right and forbidding wrong?

Idealistic Aspirations and Realistic Goals

One of the problems of having a supervisor whose mastery of a great many different languages is that one often begins to think it is possible to come close to those language skills. A three and a half hours session of closely reading Bayhaqi reminds the would be aspirant to just focus on bringing their Persian up to scratch. In an ideal world a scholar working on Mughal history would have:

1) Persian

2) Urdu

3) Brajbhasha and/or Arabic depending on their interests.

If one was feeling particularly ambitious they could add

1) Russian

2) Chaghatay Turkish

It would also not hurt to have a combination of the following:

1) Portugese

2) French

3) German

Those working on a particular region would do best to equip themselves with one of the following:

1) Bengali

2) Punjabi

3) Marathi 

4) Telugu

While day dreaming I am often torn between learning Brajbhasha or Chaghatay Turkish, or resuscitating my long dead Arabic (I had sadly moved on before it was cold in the grave), but realistically, I know for the next couple of years its going to be Persian, Persian, Persian. It is in such moments I understand how Mughal history as a field has lost out to scholars working on the colonial/post-colonial period.

Academic Myopia or whats the point of African studies?

In a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about a cluster hire in African Studies in Lehigh University (to read, click here), the commentariat opined the uselessness of the hires since there are so few jobs with a major in African Studies. The commentariat had a point, but I'd like to address two sets of concerns: the first, why choose to offer courses in or study something that is not geared towards a profession right out of school (mind you, I graduated undergrad with a degree in business), and the second what are the best ways to go about it.

Anyone who studies the humanities, especially at the graduate level, has encountered the following conversation:

Person 1: I'm an investment banker/junior partner in a legal firm/resident in oncology/make $100,000, sailboat and have a time-share in Maine. So what do you do?

Person 2: I study some-obscure-to-general-public history. (I thankfully study the Mughals; the massive marketing campaign launched by India's tourism industry has meant that I can just tell people I study the folks you brought to you the Taj Mahal... jai ho!) 

Person 1: That's sooo interesting. So what will you do with it?

Person 2: Teach.

Person 1: At a university right? (I am always conflicted about putting an "an" there)

Person 2: Yes.

Person 1 expresses concern facially and a knowing look all at once (a feat!) that says, humanities is a scam, they teach this stuff so they can study it so they can teach it. For the most part, they are right, but it's partly historians fault for that.

So what is the point of it all? First let's address the point of offering courses on area studies or histories of regions like Africa (political and economic exigencies has meant that the question is no longer asked about the modern Middle East, less so with India, East Asia and early Islamic history---people interested in Central Asian studies or Medieval Islamic history [especially social] need to come up with good reasons it seems--I suspect Chinese Universities will at some point begin African Studies programs given their Geo-political/economic interests in the region like American Universities in Middle East Studies programs after WWII, not that I'm complaining).

It seems too pedantic to say this but it is worth saying it, because we, as members of a global community need to know about the world beyond our everyday environs (survivalists who shall not leave the prairies, Upper Canada, or similar are exempt; I say if you are never to come across samosas, falafel, or dim sum then you have earned the right to not know about other cultures). Having been both a student academic adviser and an undergraduate many a moons ago I have noticed two things amongst undergrads: a huge curiosity for the unknown and a corresponding lack of knowledge about it which they could do little about without running afoul with degree guidelines. Students in professional programs often have to extend their stay in university by a semester or year if they simply want to take more than 2 courses or a minor respectively not in their own field of study. The whole point of university is to educate future generations who are knowledgeable, cultured members of society. It's not enough that we churn out a few majors in history of the Middle East or South Asia, I think the point of the history courses is to educate the wider set of people, those studying only ever-so-more-promising-in-terms-of-job-prospects social sciences or much-more-so professional degrees.

It is hard. Most of us who get trained for area studies get trained in elite universities in area studies departments; by the time we get to the Ph.D level we begin to be unable to talk about what we study to people not familiar with our field. (As an aside, try this at your next conference: go up to a person not in your field and ask them what they study, they will probably give you an answer in such non-specific terms, which, if used within field insiders, would be practically meaningless. For instance, I study 16th century social history of Mughal India). (Second aside: I do think partly we handicap ourselves because we underestimate others but having had many an experiences with people who think humanities are a scam I vacillate a great deal on the matter. I feel we may divide people up into those who watch PBS documentaries and those who don't).

No doubt there is a debate going on about how best to spend money, but the one caution I would give to those advocating universities only offering professorships and in turn courses in areas which are marked out as important or job-friendly, I would say this: I understand strategic knowledge acquisition and dissemination, but there is something to be said about people doing pioneering work or keeping certain fields alive. It is a hard balance, but the dictates of cash flow should not be the only factor in our decisions when it comes to knowing about our collective pasts.

Update: This podcast was recently passed along to me by a colleague of mine; a discussion by Martha Nussbaum on the value of humanities in North American academe via philosophy bites. Also worth checking out is a forthcoming article by Carl Ernst, "It's Not Just Academic: Writing Public Scholarship in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies,"  courtesy his website.

Scholarship (2)

Happy new year to one and all! I thought I'd begin 2012 with a positive note, this time from a rather touching preface to a book: Muhammad Saleem Akhtar's Sind Under the Mughals: An Introduction to, Translation of and Commentary on the Maẓhar-i Shāhjahānī. I refer to it as a book and not simply a translation because there is an impressive 133 page introduction. The translation is of the second part of Maẓhar-i Shāhjahānī which is history of Sind.* I pulled out my copy to glance though it after I saw one of the panels in AHA next month will cover partly this work. The part I felt was particularly touching was at the end of preface--touching because it differs so much from the self-aggrandizing tone of many introductions now. I'll just quote the portion in extenso to let it speak for itself:

 

"In the execution of this enterprise, the writer has not infrequently disagreed with his precursors. In criticizing their works, to which he owes so much, he was inspired by the same lofty ideals which prompted Hodivala to undertake the writing of the Studies in Indo-Muslim History, and the idea of discrediting or disparaging them never crossed his mind because he was more than anybody else conscious of the fact that hamah chīz hamagān dānad wa hamagān hanūz az mādar nazādah and ('It is the whole of mankind that knows everything, and the whole of mankind has not yet been born'). Nevertheless, the pursuit of truth has transcended all other considerations, and every effort has been made to uncover the facts."

M. Saleem Akhtar

Islamabad, 30 October 1989

 

Scholars of Indo-Islamic history owe much to Muhammad Saleem Akhtar for his critical editions and translation work. Perhaps there is something about doing the intensive labour of editing and translating that humbles people and makes them appreciate other's work. I am aware that not too long ago I myself complained about a certain lack of quality of scholarship, therefore the present post is more about self-reflection than preaching. Perhaps there shall be a new year's resolution to that effect.           

 

*The first portion was a tract on political ethics, a good old fashioned mirror for princes. It has not been translated. It has been examined in Sajida S. Alvi, "Maẓhar-i Shāhjahānī and the Mughal Province of Sind: A Discourse on Political Ethics," in Islam and Indian Regions, Texts, [Beitrage zur Sudasienforschung Sudasien-Institut Universitat Heidelberg, band. 145] eds. Anna L. Dallapiccola and Stephanie Z. Lallemant (Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart, 1993), vol. 1: pp. 239-258.

 

Firangis (1): Travellin' Thru'?

The European encounter with Mughal India has been a subject of considerable scholarly attention and its archive continues to be a fascinating resource for historians of the period. Due to the considerable number of the types of source (trading companies' records, travel accounts, collections of letters, missionary texts) and contexts it would be incredibly difficult to gloss the field. There was a proliferation of writing activity by Jesuit priests, adventurers, travellers, merchants, and professionals who made their way to Mughal India’s shores. Their writings have not only been used to map out Europe’s encounter with Mughal India but also to have a different perspective on Mughal dynastic and social history. However, as Colin P. Mitchell has shown, European travel accounts can hardly be viewed as the objective lens onto Mughal politics as some historians have considered them to be.

Recently, a professor of literature and culture in early modern England, Jonathan Gil Harris, has undertaken a project about European travellers in Mughal India. He is currently working on a book project ‘Becoming Indian: The Event of Travel in the Time of Shakespeare’ which “examines the embodied/out-of-body experiences of European travelers to India in the seventeenth century” (Current Research, English Department webpage: George Washington University [8-Dec-11]).  The work is significant, and like Mitchell who brought a considerable knowledge of Jacobean drama to bear on Thomas Roe's writings, Harris's expertise should provide considerable insight into ideas of authorship behind these accounts.

Related to his project he has written a series of articles in the Hindustan Times about his own experiences of embodiment during the course of his research in India, interspersing them with vivid accounts of the figures he is studying. I am linking the articles as I find them.

Part I:   The Fakir of Ajmer

Part II:  The Jeweller of Agra

Part III: The Marathi Poet of Goa

Part IV: The Heera-Wallah of Golcanda

Over the next couple of weeks I shall be adding a basic bibliography on the topic although I am by no means an expert on European travel accounts in Mughal India.

Mitchell, Colin P. Sir Thomas Roe and the Mughal Empire. Karachi: University of Karachi, Area Study of Europe, 2000.

 

Scholarship (1)

Bābur remarked in his memoirs about his uncle Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Mīrzā something that I believe applies much too often to many academics, who perhaps under pressure from the Publish or Perish academic paradigm, produce articles and even books that would have benefited from deeper and broader research. Work that suffers, to use a metaphor, from having the teabag not steep long enough in the water.

He wrote that Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Mīrzā "had poetical ability and made a divan, but his poetry was weak and flat. He composed too much; he probably should have composed less” (Bābur-nāmah, tr. Thackston, Modern Library edition, p. 31). Annette Beveridge's translation is perhaps more brutal, but equally apt: "He had a taste for poetry and put a dīwān together but his verse is flat and insipid,--not to compose is better than to compose verse such as his" (AB trans, vol. I p. 46). 

Update: this article was brought to my attention by a Maghribist and I thought it germane to this post.

Lynn Worsham, "Fast Food Scholarship," The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 12, 2011; accessed online December 14, 2011. Available online: <http://chronicle.com/article/Fast-Food-Scholarship/130049/>