Celebrating multidisciplinary Asian and African histories at Cardiff

in their post, Dr Federica Ferlanti & Dr Helena Lopes, write about the latest workshop run by the Asia Africa History Research Cluster.

What do sunken ancient Indian panels, the East Asian game of Go (碁), South Sudanese histories of labour, Chinese women’s wartime mobilisation, West Indian sailors in Japanese treaty ports, Chinese films, and South Asian princes in Wales have in common? These are some of the exciting topics that featured into the first University-wide event organised by the Asia and Africa History Research Cluster at Cardiff.

The workshop ‘Asian and African Histories at Cardiff and Beyond: Forging New Connections’ happened on the 13^th of May. The event funded by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences People, Culture and Environment Fund provided a rare opportunity to showcase the cutting-edge research on histories of Asia and Africa with different focus and across disciplines being done by staff and doctoral students across the schools of History, Archaeology, and Religion, Modern Languages, Journalism, Media and Culture, and Architecture.

We heard about past, current, and future projects and publications, both individual and collective, being undertaken that cover ancient and modern history’s multiple interplays with archaeology, religion, languages, conservation, art, music, film, politics, diplomacy, gender, medicine, and other areas.

We were delighted to welcome as keynote speaker Dr Lars Peter Laamann, Senior Lecturer of Chinese History at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Director of the Centre of World Christianity, also at SOAS. His keynote talk, ‘Modern Medicine Between Witchcraft and Microbiology: The Transformation of Late Qing Medicine from a Global Scientific Perspective (1880s-1910s)’ provided a long-durée dive into the multiple flows of medical ideas, practices, and people involved in China from a multinational, multilingual, and multireligious perspective.

Energised by the enthusiastic response to this event, the Asia Africa History Research Cluster plans to organise other University-wide events next year. Stay tuned!