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UID:507@1718.ucla.edu
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251205T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251205T171500
DTSTAMP:20251119T165131Z
URL:https://1718.ucla.edu/events/synchronicities-1/
SUMMARY:Strange Synchronicities and Familiar Parallels in Asia\, 1600–180
 0: Joseph Fletcher’s Plane Ride Revisited: Conference 1: Empires of Thou
 ght
DESCRIPTION:\n\nRegistration Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQ
 LSd6rNvk41ht0BJ7c0rSR_WTvNS6OGs-Vs9pzYyoQ7NpveoOog/viewform?usp=dialog\n\n
 Organized by Choon Hwee Koh (History\, UCLA)\, Meng Zhang (History\, UCLA)
 \, and Abhishek Kaicker (History\, UC Berkeley)\n\n\nCo-sponsored by the U
 CLA Program on Central Asia\, Center for Near Eastern Studies\, and Center
  for Chinese Studies\n\nThe first conference looks at Imperial Ideology. H
 ow did early modern Eurasian empires conceive of and construct power and l
 egitimacy? What were the bases of imperial ideologies in the seventeenth a
 nd eighteenth centuries and who were their audiences? More fundamentally\,
  what do we mean when we talk about Eurasian “empires”?\n\nThis confer
 ence challenges and broadens the default understanding of empire as a larg
 e territorial state by focusing on how each empire upheld a normative univ
 erse within which particular kinds of political authority and legitimacy w
 ere articulated. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries\, the Ottoman
 s and Mughals articulated ideas of universal sovereignty in millenarian te
 rms that responded to and co-opted their subjects’ anxieties about the h
 ijri millennium (1000AH / 1591-2 CE). Qing universal sovereignty was const
 ructed as rulership simultaneously rooted in Confucian\, Tibetan Buddhist\
 , Islamic\, and Shamanistic traditions and surpassing ethno-cultural diffe
 rences. Rather than assuming a commonality in the aims of historical empir
 es\, we seek to understand how varying traditions of thought about power p
 atterned the practices of rule.\n\nOur prompt to participants of the first
  conference: What might sovereignty mean beyond the political context in w
 hich that idea was developed? How did actors conceive of the political ord
 er they were constructing\, and how did such visions shape and constrain t
 he particular forms of power and legitimacy? How did different visions of 
 political order in turn shape different identifications of potential sourc
 es of threats\, priorities of rule\, and what was acceptable\, or even con
 ceivable\, as viable policy options?\n\nSpeakers\nXiao Chen\, University o
 f California\, Riverside\nPamela Crossley\, Dartmouth College\nSuraiya Far
 oqhi\, Ibn Haldun University\nSupriya Gandhi\, Yale University\nEthan L. M
 enchinger\, Niagara University / University of Manchester\nMatthew W. Mosc
 a\, University of Washington\, Seattle\nHasan Zahid Siddiqui\, University 
 of British Columbia\nWill Smiley\, University of New Hampshire\nYuanchong 
 Wang\, University of Delaware\n\n\n\nAbout the 2025–26 Core Program: Str
 ange Synchronicities and Familiar Parallels in Asia\, 1600–1800: Joseph 
 Fletcher’s Plane Ride Revisited\nIn the 1970s\, polyglot Sinologist and 
 Inner Asian specialist Joseph Fletcher had a powerful insight: there were 
 both “interconnections” and “parallels” across the early modern wo
 rld. Despite Fletcher’s untimely death in 1984\, his insight of “inter
 connections” captured the imagination of a generation of historians who 
 went on to craft histories that were “connected” or\, even\, “global
 .” These histories highlighted the myriad kinds of “interconnections
 ” that had forged early modernity.\n\nWith this overwhelming attention t
 o “connections\,” Fletcher’s second notion of “parallels” came t
 o be relatively neglected. Comparative history\, with its profound methodo
 logical challenges regarding unit\, scale\, and criteria of comparison\, c
 ame to be passed over in favor of the agenda and paradigm of “connected 
 history.” This relative neglect of comparative history has restricted ou
 r understanding of the early modern world\, in which strange synchroniciti
 es and familiar parallels appear across disparate world-regions that were 
 yet to be violently incorporated into a modern global order centered on Eu
 rope.\n\nIn this cycle of three conferences\, historians of the Ottoman\, 
 Qing\, and Mughal empires return to the problem of comparison by consideri
 ng synchronicities and structural parallels across Asia. We focus on three
  broad areas: Imperial Ideology (Empires of Thought)\, Imperial Operations
  (Empires in Practice)\, and Society\, Materiality\, and Knowledge (Empire
 s of Things).\n\nEarly modern empires confronted many similar problems: th
 e ideological and administrative problems of managing diversity\, the info
 rmational and fiscal problems caused by distance\, the centrifugal and cen
 tripetal tensions of power\, and the delineation and co-optation of status
  groups\, to name a few. The many different solutions that had developed i
 n different regions also shared some striking similarities in their underl
 ying logic. In jointly exploring such differences and commonalities across
  early modern Eurasia\, we aim to devise fresh methodological approaches t
 o tackle old comparative questions in new ways.\n\n\n\nProgram Schedule\n\
 n8:30 a.m.\nCoffee and Registration\n\n9:00 a.m.\nDirector’s Welcome\nBr
 onwen Wilson\, University of California\, Los Angeles\n\nIntroductory Rema
 rks\nChoon Hwee Koh\, University of California\, Los Angeles\, Meng Zhang\
 , University of California\, Los Angeles\, and Abhishek Kaicker\, Universi
 ty of California\, Berkeley\n\n9:15–10:45 a.m.\nPanel 1: Rulers and Pleb
 eians\nDiscussant: Richard von Glahn\, University of California\, Los Ange
 les\n\nPamela Crossley\, Dartmouth College\n“Rulership\, Identity\, and 
 Organic Patterns Across Early Modern Eurasia”\n\nSuraiya Faroqhi\, Ibn H
 aldun University\n“Plebeian Politics in Early Modern Istanbul\, Paris\, 
 and Shahjahanabad/Old Delhi”\n\nDiscussion\n\n10:45 a.m.\nCoffee Break\n
 \n11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.\nPanel 2: Temporal and Genealogical Order\nDiscu
 ssant: Luke Yarbrough\, University of California\, Los Angeles\n\nEthan L.
  Menchinger\, Niagara University / University of Manchester\n“Failed Exp
 eriments in Imperial Genealogy? On the Ottoman Dynasty's Arabian Origins
 ”\n\nYuanchong Wang\, University of Delaware\n“Time to Reflect on Self
  and Statecraft: Eclipse Rescue Rituals\, Imperial Mobilization\, and Admi
 nistrative Coordination During the Qing Dynasty”\n\nDiscussion\n\n12:30 
 p.m.\nLunch Break\nExhibition of Clark Library materials in the North Book
  Room\n\n1:30–3:00 p.m.\nPanel 3: Scholars and Bureaucrats\nDiscussant: 
 Nile Green\, University of California\, Los Angeles\n\nXiao Chen\, Univers
 ity of California\, Riverside\n“Xinjiang and the Ideology of ’Grand Un
 ity‘ in the Early Nineteenth-Century Qing Empire”\n\nSupriya Gandhi\, 
 Yale University\n“Gnosis and Politics: Mughal Bureaucratic Discourse”\
 n\nDiscussion\n\n3:00 p.m.\nCoffee Break\n\n3:15–5:15 p.m.\nPanel 4: Tes
 ting Sovereignty\nDiscussant: Sixiang Wang\, University of California\, Lo
 s Angeles\n\nMatthew W. Mosca\, University of Washington\, Seattle\n“Was
  the Qing a Universal Empire?: Mongols and Muslims”\n\nHasan Zahid Siddi
 qui\, University of British Columbia\n“Mughal Sovereignty in extremis”
 \n\nWill Smiley\, University of New Hampshire\n“Ottoman Sovereignty and 
 Legal Strategy”\n\nDiscussion\n\n5:15 p.m.\nConcluding Remarks\n\n\n\nTh
 e conference is free to attend with advance registration\, and will be hel
 d in-person at the Clark Library. Seating is limited at the Clark Library\
 ; walk-in registrants are welcome as space permits.\n\n\n\nComposite image
 :  Montanus\, Arnoldus. 1671. Atlas Chinensis: Being a Second Part of a R
 elation of Remarkable Passages in Two Embassies from the East-India Compan
 y of the United Provinces… Translated by John Ogilby. London. | Rycaut\,
  Paul\, Richard Knolles\, Robert White\, Frederick Hendrick van Hove\, Joh
 n Macock\, and John Starkey. 1680. The History of the Turkish Empire from 
 the Year 1623 to the Year 1677… London. | Tavernier\, Jean-Baptiste\, an
 d François Bernier. 1688. Collections of Travels through Turky into Pers
 ia\, and the East-Indies. Giving an Account of the State of Those Countrie
 s… Translated by J. Philips and Edmund Everard. London. | Rembrandt\, Tw
 o Mughal noblemen (Shah Jahan and Dara Shikoh)\, 1656\, pen and wash on pa
 per\, The British Museum\, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. All other images
  courtesy of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library\, with special tha
 nks to Arie Nair\, Reading Room Assistant and Ph.D. Candidate\, University
  of California\, Los Angeles.
CATEGORIES:Conferences,Core Program
LOCATION:UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library\, 2520 Cimarron Street
 \, Los Angeles\, California\, 90018\, United States
GEO:34.033012;-118.314487
X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=2520 Cimarron Street\, Los 
 Angeles\, California\, 90018\, United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=UC
 LA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library:geo:34.033012,-118.314487
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DTSTART:20251102T010000
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