The Indian Ocean World Podcast

Angela Schottenhammer - Maritime Disasters, Risk Appraisals, and Exchanges of Medicinal Knowledge in Maritime East Asia

Prof. Angela Schottenhammer (KU Leuven) discusses her and her team’s ongoing research into maritime disasters, risk appraisals, and exchanges of medicinal knowledge in East Asian Waters in c.1500-1800. Several themes are discussed, which transcend the disciplines of climate history, maritime archaeology, and medical history. She refers to typhoons, currents, diseases, and the material cultures of medical practitioners, referring to both East Asian and European sources.
Prof. Schottenhammer and her team are furthermore working on a video called, ‘Piracy in Historical Asia.’ It will be published here, where you can also find out more details now.
Prof. Schottenhammer has additionally published (and continues to publish) widely. More details can be found at https://crossroads-research.net; and https://schottenhammer.net. Additionally, some of her most important recent and forthcoming publications include:
Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), Early Global Interconnectivity Across the Indian Ocean World, 2 vols (Cham, CH: Palgrave, 2019): vol. I, Commercial Structures and Exchanges; vol. II, Exchange of Ideas, Religions, and Technologies.
Robert Antony and Angela Schottenhammer (eds.), Beyond the Silk Roads: New Discourses on China’s Role in East Asian Maritime History (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 2017) 
Wim De Winter, Angela Schottenhammer, Mathieu Torck (eds.), Seafaring, Trade, and Knowledge Transfer:  Maritime Politics and Commerce in Early Middle Period to Early Modern China [CROS Crossroads – History of Interactions across the Silk Routes] (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2021), forthcoming.
Angela Schottenhammer, “‘Peruvian Balsam’: An Example of Transoceanic Transfer of Medicinal Knowledge’, Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 16:69 (2020), 1-20.
 Angela Schottenhammer, “Major ‘International’ Currencies of China and Japan: The Use of Copper Coins, Silver Ingots and Paper Money”, in Steven Serel, Gwyn Campbell (eds.), Currencies of the Indian Ocean World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 17-48.
Angela Schottenhammer, “Die zunehmende Einbindung Chinas in die Welt des Indischen Ozeans bis zum Beginn der Song-Dynastie: Seewege, Verbindungen und Handel”, in Raimund Schulz (Hrsg.), Maritime Entdeckung und Expansion. Kontinuitäten, Parallelen und Brüche von der Antike bis in die Neuzeit, Sonderband der Historischen Zeitschrift (Oldenburg: De Gruyter Verlag, 2019), 139-173.
Angela Schottenhammer, “16-18 seiki ni okeru taiheiyō o matagu suigin no mitsu bōeki” アンゲラ・ショッテンハマー著、「16－18世紀における太平洋を跨ぐ水銀の密貿易」, transl. by Hideaki Suzuki 鈴木英明, in Hideaki Suzuki 鈴木英明編訳 (ed.) Nettowaku to kaiiki: Higashi Ajia kara yūbō suru sekaishi 『ネットワークと海域―東アジアから眺望する世界史』(Akashi shoten, 2019), 230-264.
Angela Schottenhammer, “China’s Rise and Retreat as a Maritime Power”, in Robert Antony, Angela Schottenhammer (eds.), New Discourses on China’s Role in East Asian Maritime History (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 2017), 189-211.
Angela Schottenhammer, “Consolidating Southeast Asia and the Meaning of Force in History: Pax Ming and the Case of Chen Zuyi 陳祖義 (d. 1407)”, China and Asia: A Journal of Historical Studies (2021), forthcoming.
 Angela Schottenhammer, Mathieu Torck, Wim De Winter, “Surgeons and Physicians on the Move in the Asian Waters (15th to 18th Centuries)”, Haiyangshi yanjiu 海洋史研究 (2021), in press.
 Angela Schottenhammer, “Maritime Disasters and Risk Appraisals in the East Asian Waters”, Études thématiques (2021), forthcoming.
 Angela Schottenhammer, “Some Remarks on the Use and Provision of Camphor in Early Modern China and in Spanish Asian and American Colonies”, in Festschrift for Paul David Buell, ed. by Timothy May (2021), forthcoming.
 Angela Schottenhammer, “Insights into Global Maritime Trade Around 1600”, in Festschrift for Ranabir Chakravarti, ed. By Suchandra Gosh et al. (Bloomsbury: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), forthcoming.
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Xu Zhexin - Tang-Song Transition Era Maritime Activities in East and Southeast Asia

With the help of Dr. Alexander Jost, Xu Zhexin (both University of Salzburg) discusses his PhD research into the history of maritime activities in South and Southeast China and its neighbouring regions during the co-called Tang-Song transition period, which is based on his analysis of official records, inscription sources, and visual materials. Thank you also to Prof. Angela Schottenhammer (KU Leuven) for facilitating this interview.
For more on Prof. Schottenhammer’s work and Xu Zhexin’s place in it, see: https://crossroads-research.net/team/
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Shaila Seshia Galvin - Sustainable Organic Farming and Questions of Value

Prof. Shaila Seshia Galvin (Graduate Institute of International Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland) discusses her anthropological and sociological work on organic Basmati rice farming in the Doon Valley, Uttarakhand,  India. She explores how a locally produced commodity acquires new meanings through organic certification procedures, as well as the socio-economic and cultural implications of such agrarian practices for sustainable trade and development.
For more information about Prof. Galvin’s work, please see:
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300215014/becoming-organic/
https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12704
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105070
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Meera Muralidharan - Hortus Malabaricus: Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Production of Natural History Knowledge in Malabar (1678-1693)

Meera Muralidharan, a doctoral researcher at the School of History, Victoria University, Wellington, discusses her paper, ‘Hortus Malabaricus: Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Production of Natural History Knowledge in Malabar (1678-1693),’ which won the Research Excellence Award at the Victoria University Awards in 2019 and is a part of her doctoral research. Key themes include global transfers of knowledge, human migration, colonial science, and modern environmental history.
For more on Meera’s work, see her profile at: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/nziri/fellows/associate-fellows/meera-g-muralidharan
Also, see her recent publication:
‘Cross-Cultural Interactions and Missionary Writings in the Context of the Dutch East India Company, c. 1600–72’ in Malabar in the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism in a Maritime Historical Region, eds. Mahmood Kooria and M.N. Pearson (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018).
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Anna Winterbottom - ‘Becoming Traditional’: A Transnational History of Neem and Biopiracy Discourses

Dr. Anna Winterbottom (McGill) discusses her forthcoming journal article, ‘”Becoming traditional”: A transnational history of neem and biopiracy discourses,’ which is due to be published in 2021 in Osiris. The article is part of a special issue entitled ‘Global medical cultures, properties and laws,’ and explores the shifting uses and cultural meanings of neem, a tree of the mahogany family native to South and Southeast Asia, over time and space. Specifically, the article and the podcast discussion examine how neem became associated with the idea of ‘traditional’ Indian medicine as Western medical companies sought patents on neem derivatives in the 1990s.
For the article, see: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/713897
For more on Dr. Winterbottom’s work, see: https://indianoceanworldcentre.com/research_affiliates/anna-winterbottom/
Also, please check out Dr. Winterbottom’s seminal monograph: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137380203
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Thomas Kuehn - Managing the Hazards of Yemen’s Natural Environment

Prof. Thomas Kuehn (Simon Fraser University) discusses his forthcoming chapter, ‘Managing the hazards of Yemen’s natural environment. Nature and imperial governance in Ottoman South West Arabia, 1872-1914.’ Key themes include imperial governance, human-environment interaction in the context of ‘challenging’ environments, and knowledge production in the late Ottoman Empire.
Prof. Kuehn is also the author or several publications related to the topics related to this podcast. See, for example:
Thomas Kuehn, Empire, Islam and Politics of Difference. Ottoman Rule in Yemen, 1849-1919 (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2019).
“‘We Know Nothing About Yemen!’ Ottoman Imperial Governance in Southwest Arabia and the Politics of Knowledge Production, 1871–1914”, Journal of Arabian Studies, 8, 1 (2018), pp. 5-24.
“Translators of Empire: Colonial Cosmopolitanism, Ottoman Bureaucrats and the Struggle over the Governance of Yemen, 1898-1914”, in Cosmopolitanisms in Muslim Contexts, eds. Derryl N. Maclean and Sikeena Karmali Ahmed (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2013), pp. 51-67.
“Shaping and Re-Shaping Colonial Ottomanism: Contesting Boundaries of Difference and Integration in Ottoman Yemen, 1872-1919”, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, 27, 2 (August 2007), pp. 315-331.
“Colonialisme” and “Yémen” in Dictionaire de l’Empire ottoman – XVe-XXe siècle, eds. François Georgeon, Nicolas Vatin, and Gilles Veinstein (Paris: Fayard, 2015).
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Michael Christopher Low - Imperial Mecca

Professor Michael Christopher Low (Iowa State University and NYU Abu Dhabi) discusses his new book, Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020). Key themes include technological change, disease, and the British and Ottoman Empires in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
More information about the book can be found at: http://cup.columbia.edu/book/imperial-mecca/9780231190770
More of Prof. Low’s work is available at his Iowa State profile and at his NYU Abu-Dhabi profile.
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Steven Serels - Animal Diseases as Threats to State Power in the SRSR

Dr. Steven Serels (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient) discusses his research into animal diseases as threats to state power in the history of the Southern Red Sea Region (SRSR). The discussion weaves around diseases to camels, horses, and cattle, and brings up key themes of human-environment interaction, military uses for animals, colonial rule, and global climatic anomalies. 
More details of Dr. Serels work can be found at: https://www.zmo.de/personen/dr-steven-serels
Please also check out especially his two monographs:
The Impoverishment of the African Red Sea Littoral 1640-1945 (Cham, CH: Palgrave, 2018): https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319941646
Starvation and the State: Famine, power and slavery in Sudan, 1883-1956 (Cham, CH: Palgrave, 2013): https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137383860
This podcast was produced with the help of with Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC) Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill)

Akash Ondaatje - Animal Ascension

Akash Ondaatje, a recently graduated Masters candidate at Queens University, discusses his thesis, ‘Animal Ascension: Elevation and Debasement Through Human-Animal Associations in English Satire, 1700 -1820,’ thus continuing our recent theme on animal studies, and tracing the lives of some IOW animals into European cultural frameworks. To see the visual format of this podcast, please see: https://www.appraisingrisk.com/2020/09/16/ondaatje-animal-ascension/. 
Ondaatje is now working at KnowHistory (https://knowhistory.ca/) as a Research Associate of Indigenous genealogies. His Masters thesis can be found here: https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/27991
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Archisman Chaudhuri, and Philip Gooding (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Radhika Govindrajan - Animal Intimacies: Interspecies Relatedness in India’s Central Himalayas

Professor Radhika Govindrajan (University of Washington) discusses her award winning book, Animal Intimacies: Interspecies relatedness in India’s Central Himalayas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018) with Renée Manderville, Archisman Chaudhuri, and Philip Gooding (all IOWC). Animal Intimacies explores what ­it means to live and die in relation to other animals, alongside the intimate—and intense—moments of care, kinship, violence, politics, indifference, and desire that occur between human and non-human animals.
For more on the book, see: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo28301734.html
For more on Prof. Govindrajan’s work, see her bio at: https://anthropology.washington.edu/people/radhika-govindrajan
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Archisman Chaudhuri, and Philip Gooding (postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).