In this episode, Rustin speaks with Lindsey Stephenson, who is currently conducting postgraduate research at Princeton University, and the new host of Ajam's Indian Ocean podcast series. The Indian Ocean series explores topics related to the Islamo-Arabic and Persianate world from the perspective of the Indian Ocean littoral and the people who traversed its waters. These conversations aim to rethink narratives of history and culture, which have been traditionally boxed in by land-based territorial demarcations and regional studies frameworks. This series invites listeners to imagine the complex interconnectedness of life from East Africa to Southeast Asia and beyond. In the first Indian Ocean series episode, Dr. Stephenson discusses her research on pre-oil mobility and modernity in the Persian Gulf, as well as its connections to Indian Ocean at large. While many people think that modernity came to the Gulf when oil was discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century, Lindsey demonstrates that global markets, labor demands, and capital from the date and pearling industries led to massive changes in the social, political, and legal spheres of the Persian Gulf several decades earlier. ...
In this episode, Kamyar and Rustin parse out the different narratives circulating around the September 22 terrorist attack in Ahvaz/Ahwaz. They discuss Narges Bajoghli's recent article in Foreign Policy, ["Did a Terrorist Attack Just Save the Iranian Regime?"](http://https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/26/did-a-terrorist-attack-just-save-the-iranian-regime/). Dr Bajoghli is a friend of Ajam, and has appeared on the Emerging Scholarship Series to discuss her research on the [media and cultural production of Iran-Iraq War paramilitary veterans](http://https://ajammc.com/2015/09/27/emerging-scholarship-bajoghli-paramilitary-media/). Joshua Sooter, a PhD candidate in History and East Asian Studies at New York University joins the show to talk about the ongoing conflict in China's Xinjiang Province. The conversation covers the history of Chinese western expansion and current-day state repression of the Uyghur population. Recommended Readings: [China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia](http://http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674057432), by Peter C. Perdue [Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia-China Frontier](http://http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674660373), by David Brophy ...
In this episode, Ali and Lindsey are joined by Dr. Keelan Overton, an independent scholar in Santa Barbara, and Dr. Subah Dayal, Assistant Professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU, to talk about [Iran and the Deccan: Persianate Art, Culture, and Talent in Circulation, 1400-1700 (Indiana University Press, 2020)](https://iupress.org/9780253048912/iran-and-the-deccan/). They highlight the shared and oft overlooked history of Iran and the Deccan plateau of southern India over a three-hundred-year period. During this time, the sea routes between Iran and the Deccan became a major point of exchange for not only trade, but also the circulation of precious objects, poetic styles, as well as kings, saints, artisans, and statesmen. The volume paints a picture of a complex world wherein fashions and styles travel across myriad languages and social contexts. It shows how the Sultanates of the Deccan were embedded in, an integral part of, and inheritors to the norms of the Timurid period that are usually associated with the Ottomans, Safavids, and the Mughals. The result was "the creation of a robust transregional Persianate network linking such distant cities as Bidar and Shiraz, Bijapur and Isfahan, and Golconda and Mashhad." While clear hierarchies developed that privileged the Persian language and its customs, there was also a creative adaptation of Persianate archetypes into Deccani vernaculars. For example, Subah explains how one 17th-century poet tells the story of contemporary battles and political events in the form of the Shahnameh, but in Deccani language. In architecture, Keelan describes how Deccani basalt rock was used to frame the panels of otherwise archetypical Persianate tilework inscriptions. Together, they reveal the merits of interdisciplinarity and creativity for telling global histories. *Correction, ~16:16: Keelan mentioned ...
