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UID:509@1718.ucla.edu
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260508T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260508T173000
DTSTAMP:20260428T155639Z
URL:https://1718.ucla.edu/events/synchronicities-3/
SUMMARY:Strange Synchronicities and Familiar Parallels in Asia\, 1600–180
 0: Joseph Fletcher’s Plane Ride Revisited: Conference 3: Empires of Thin
 gs
DESCRIPTION:\nOrganized by Choon Hwee Koh (History\, UCLA)\, Meng Zhang (Hi
 story\, UCLA)\, and Abhishek Kaicker (History\, UC Berkeley)\n\n\nCo-spons
 ored by the UCLA Program on Central Asia\, Center for Near Eastern Studies
 \, and Center for Chinese Studies\n\nThe third conference looks at Society
 \, Materiality\, and Knowledge. In Fletcher’s terms\, a “quickening te
 mpo” of increased mobility and commercial activity across the early mode
 rn Eurasian space heightened imperial concerns about the effectiveness of 
 political control over increasingly assertive and unruly subjects. Since F
 letcher’s work\, scholars have discerned a new momentum in cultural prod
 uction driven by emerging anxieties over a changing social and economic or
 der. These fears were reflected in literature\, in legal codes that tried 
 to reinforce status hierarchies\, and in new modes of religiosity and spir
 itual movements. In what new ways did merchants trade\, how did artisans a
 nd craftsmen organize themselves\, how did guilds transform\, how did the 
 pious communicate with each other\, how did common subjects live\, how did
  spatial imaginaries change?\n\nWhereas the first two conferences largely 
 assume the position and spatiality of the empire\, this conference follows
  the currents of social\, material\, and knowledge movements across a loca
 l\, communal\, oceanic\, or trans-imperial space that might have propelled
 \, supplemented\, paralleled\, superseded\, or completely ignored the agen
 da of the empire. Rather than assuming a dichotomy of state and society as
  the norm\, we are interested in exploring different modes of mutual inter
 actions in various arenas of power.\n\nOur prompt to participants of the t
 hird conference: What social processes or social patterns that emerged in 
 this period had enduring consequences across space and/or time? Is there a
  material artifact that captures\, in your analysis\, a defining character
 istic of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the empire you study?
  Is there a mode of knowledge production that captures the particularity o
 f these two centuries in the empire you study?\n\n\n\nSpeakers\nOscar Agui
 rre-Mandujano\, University of Pennsylvania\nJohn J. Curry\, University of 
 Nevada\, Las Vegas\nDevin Fitzgerald\, University of California\, Los Ange
 les\nAnne Gerritsen\, University of Warwick\nSourav Ghosh\, Lehigh Univers
 ity\nFarhat Hasan\, University of Delhi\nJasmin Wai Tan Law\, Ahmanson-Get
 ty Postdoctoral Fellow\nSylvia Tongyan Qiu\, University of California\, Lo
 s Angeles\nStacey Van Vleet\, University of California\, Berkeley\nGuanmia
 n Xu\, Peking University\n\n\n\nAbout the 2025–26 Core Program: Strange 
 Synchronicities and Familiar Parallels in Asia\, 1600–1800: Joseph Fletc
 her’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 world. 
 Despite Fletcher’s untimely death in 1984\, his insight of “interconne
 ctions” 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” tha
 t had forged early modernity.\n\nWith this overwhelming attention to “co
 nnections\,” Fletcher’s second notion of “parallels” came to be re
 latively neglected. Comparative history\, with its profound methodological
  challenges regarding unit\, scale\, and criteria of comparison\, came to 
 be passed over in favor of the agenda and paradigm of “connected history
 .” This relative neglect of comparative history has restricted our under
 standing of the early modern world\, in which strange synchronicities and 
 familiar parallels appear across disparate world-regions that were yet to 
 be violently incorporated into a modern global order centered on Europe.\n
 \nIn this cycle of three conferences\, historians of the Ottoman\, Qing\, 
 and Mughal empires return to the problem of comparison by considering sync
 hronicities and structural parallels across Asia. We focus on three broad 
 areas: Imperial Ideology (Empires of Thought)\, Imperial Operations (Empir
 es in Practice)\, and Society\, Materiality\, and Knowledge (Empires of Th
 ings).\n\nEarly modern empires confronted many similar problems: the ideol
 ogical and administrative problems of managing diversity\, the information
 al and fiscal problems caused by distance\, the centrifugal and centripeta
 l tensions of power\, and the delineation and co-optation of status groups
 \, to name a few. The many different solutions that had developed in diffe
 rent regions also shared some striking similarities in their underlying lo
 gic. In jointly exploring such differences and commonalities across early 
 modern Eurasia\, we aim to devise fresh methodological approaches to tackl
 e 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\nBronwen W
 ilson\, University of California\, Los Angeles\n\nIntroductory Remarks\nCh
 oon Hwee Koh\, University of California\, Los Angeles\; Meng Zhang\, Unive
 rsity of California\, Los Angeles\; and Abhishek Kaicker\, University of C
 alifornia\, Berkeley\n\n9:15–10:15 a.m.\nPanel 1: Information and Knowle
 dge\nDiscussant: Sixiang Wang\, University of California\, Los Angeles\n\n
 Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano\, University of Pennsylvania\n“From Gossip to Ru
 mor: The Changing Nature of Informal Conversation in the Ottoman Empire”
 \n\nJasmin Wai Tan Law\, Ahmanson-Getty Postdoctoral Fellow\n“Knowing 
 ‘Holland’ in Seventeenth-Century Ming–Qing China”\n\nDevin Fitzger
 ald\, University of California\, Los Angeles\n“Printing Like a State: In
 formation Management and Bureaucracy in the Early Ming”\n\n10:15–10:45
  a.m.\nCoffee Break\n\n10:45–11:30 a.m.\nPanel 2: Urban Sociality and Re
 ligiosity\nDiscussant: Luke Yarbrough\, University of California\, Los Ang
 eles \n\nJohn J. Curry\, University of Nevada\, Las Vegas\n“The Hagiogr
 aphy of Unsi Hasan Efendi as an Artifact of Widening Literary Production i
 n the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Empire”\n\nAnne Gerritsen\, University 
 of Warwick\n“The Merchant and The Temple: The Infrastructures of Jiangxi
  Migrants’ Commerce”\n\n11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.\nRoundtable Discussion
  I\n\n12:30–2:00 p.m.\nLunch\nExhibition of Clark Library materials in t
 he North Book Room\n\n2:00–3:00 p.m.\nPanel 3: Materials of Empire\nDisc
 ussant: Andrea Goldman\, University of California\, Los Angeles\n\nSourav 
 Ghosh\, Lehigh University\n“The Katar’s Edge: Forging Rajput Kingship 
 in Seventeenth-Century Mughal India”\n\nSylvia Tongyan Qiu\, University 
 of California\, Los Angeles\n“Transimperial Stones: ‘Islamic Jades’ 
 and the Politics of Gem Inlays in Early Modern Eurasia”\n\nGuanmian Xu\,
  Peking University\n“Sugar and the Expansion of Qing Capitalism in Tropi
 cal Asia”\n\n3:00–3:15 p.m.\nHealth Break\n\n3:15–4:00 p.m.\nPanel 4
 : Medicine and Biopolitics\nDiscussant: Elizabeth O’Brien\, University o
 f California\, Los Angeles\n\nFarhat Hasan\, University of Delhi\n“Body\
 , Health\, and Preventative Care in Early Modern South Asia: The Cosmopoli
 s-Local Interactions and the Development of Medical Episteme\, Seventeenth
 -Eighteenth Centuries”\n\nStacey Van Vleet\, University of California\, 
 Berkeley\n“Precious Pills\, Buddhist Medical Bureaucracy\, and the Biopo
 litics of Qing Inner Asia”\n\n4:00–4:30 p.m.\nCoffee Break\n\n4:30–5
 :30 p.m.\nRoundtable Discussion II\n\n5:30 p.m.\nConclusion\n\n\n\nThe con
 ference is free to attend with advance registration\, and will be held in-
 person at the Clark Library.  Seating is limited at the Clark Library\; w
 alk-in registrants are welcome as space permits.\n\n\n\nLoading…\n\n\n\n
 Composite image: Montanus\, Arnoldus. 1671. Atlas Chinensis: Being a Secon
 d Part of a Relation of Remarkable Passages in Two Embassies from the East
 -India Company of the United Provinces… Translated by John Ogilby. Londo
 n. | Rycaut\, Paul\, Richard Knolles\, Robert White\, Frederick Hendrick v
 an Hove\, John Macock\, and John Starkey. 1680. The History of the Turkish
  Empire from the Year 1623 to the Year 1677… London. | Tavernier\, Jean-
 Baptiste\, and François Bernier. 1688. Collections of Travels through Tu
 rky into Persia\, and the East-Indies. Giving an Account of the State of T
 hose Countries… Translated by J. Philips and Edmund Everard. London. | R
 embrandt\, Two Mughal noblemen (Shah Jahan and Dara Shikoh)\, 1656\, pen a
 nd wash on paper\, The British Museum\, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. All
  other images courtesy of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library\, wit
 h special thanks 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
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