Acknowledgments

Flood, Finbarr Barry

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Acknowledgments

Finbarr Barry Flood

Description: Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim”...

Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim” Encounter

~More than any other project that I have undertaken, this has been a collaborative endeavor, and my debt to colleagues and friends who gave freely and generously of their opinions, time, research materials, and photographs during the decade that it was under way is immense. In addition to the individuals named below, I would like to thank all those whose numerous...

Author

Finbarr Barry Flood

PublisherPrinceton University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00088.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18548

Acknowledgments

More than any other project that I have undertaken, this has been a collaborative endeavor, and my debt to colleagues and friends who gave freely and generously of their opinions, time, research materials, and photographs during the decade that it was under way is immense. In addition to the individuals named below, I would like to thank all those whose numerous small kindnesses helped smooth my path, especially during my travels in India, Iran, and Pakistan.

The project would have been impossible without a series of fellowships and grants that allowed me to research and write various sections of the book and to share ideas with colleagues across a range of continents and fields. At various times, the research has benefited from travel grants awarded by the Barakat Trust and the Fondation Max van Berchem, and I am grateful to them both for enabling the fieldwork on which much of the book depends. The intellectual framework of the book was shaped by my experiences as an Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in 2000–2001. Between 2001 and 2002 the research was facilitated by a Smithsonian Institution Fellowship held at the Freer and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C. The support of both institutions enabled me to develop my ideas in an atmosphere of true fellowship, and I am enormously grateful to them for indulging my shifting enthusiasms and exasperations. I would like to offer a special thanks to the curators, fellows, and staff at both institutions, especially Zoë Strother, Stella Nair, Faya Causey, Debra Diamond, Massumeh Farhad, and Ann Gunter. The final stages of writing were undertaken in the fall of 2006 and spring of 2007, when I was fortunate enough to be a residential fellow of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, and a visiting scholar at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.

I would also like to thank New York University for providing both the means and the opportunity to work on the book during two years of leave in 2004–2005 and 2006–2007, and my colleagues for shouldering the pleasures and pains of my absence. Among the friends and colleagues at NYU who offered advice, conversation, and support of various kinds during the final stages of writing, I would like to offer a special thanks to Priscilla Soucek and Kathryn Smith, and to Everett Rowson for his generosity in sharing with me his as yet unpublished work on the historian al-‘Utbi.

This book would not have been possible without the assistance of a remarkable group of librarians scattered across several continents. I am particularly grateful to the librarians at Cornell University for their help at various points between 1998 and 2000, even though I held no formal affiliation there. In London, I profited from the astounding resources, efficiency, and bonhomie of the staff of the Oriental Reading Rooms in the British Library. In Washington, the remarkable librarians of the Library of Congress, the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, and the Freer & Sackler Galleries showed patience and tenacity with my various requests for obscure publications. The last stages of the project benefited from the help of the librarians of New York University—Tom McNulty and the Interlibrary Loan staff deserve particular mention.

My observations on the numismatic material have benefited greatly from discussions with several distinguished colleagues, who have patiently endured my amateurish queries and theories. In particular, I would like to thank Stan Goron, Dr. Michael Bates of the American Numismatic Society, Prof. Lutz Ilisch of Tübingen University, Dr. Joe Cribb of the British Museum, and Dr. Shailendra Bhandare of the Ashmolean Museum. I would also like to offer my warm thanks to Dr. Mohammad Reza Kargar, director of the Iran Bastan Museum, and Mrs. Zohreh Rouhfar, curator of Islamic material, for permitting me to study the Ghurid Qur’an discussed in chapter 4. Elizabeth Lambourn kindly shared her work on the Indian Ocean trade with me and brought the relevant Sri Lankan material to my notice.

For help with obtaining images and information, it is a pleasure to thank Dr. Anette Kramer, Mr. Manfred Eder, Dr. Raffael Gadebusch, Mr. David Thomas, Prof. Tom Mathews, Dr. Lev Avdoyan, Mr. James Willaman, Dr. Stefano Carboni, Prof. Bernt Glatzer, Dr. Navina Haidar, Dr. Lynn Jones, Dr. Sue Kaukji, Dr. Monik Kervran, and Mr. Derek J. Content. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Dr. Roberta Giunta and Prof. Gherardo Gnoli for their generosity in supplying images of the reliefs from Ghazni and permitting their reproduction. Heartfelt thanks are due to Jaroslav Poncar and Dr. Christian Luczanits for their kindness in supplying and permitting the reproduction of the Alchi images that they will soon publish in all their colorful glory. Particular thanks are also due to Dr. Vandana Sinha at the American Institute of Indian Studies, Gurgaon, for her help with obtaining photographic material from the institute’s archives. I would like to offer a special thanks to Max Schneider for his patience and perseverance with the drawings for the book.

Roberta Giunta, Scott Redford, Bernard O’Kane, and Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst all commented on various chapters of the book while they were being drafted in ways that helped me clarify the presentation and avoid errors. I owe a particular debt to Oleg Grabar and to two anonymous reviewers for their very careful reading and critiques of the draft manuscript, and to my editor at Princeton University Press, Hanne Winarsky, for her insights and suggestions, to Terri O’Prey and Tracy Baldwin, and to Will Hively for the care with which he copyedited the manuscript. These critical interventions have greatly improved the finished product.

Over the years, the development of my thought on the subjects of this book has derived particular benefit from informal discussions with Phillip Wagoner of Wesleyan University and Sunil Kumar of Delhi University, two colleagues and friends who are major innovators in the field of medieval South Asian history. Whether or not it faithfully reflects the content and tenor of those conversations, without them this project would never have assumed some of the forms that it has. I am truly grateful to them both for their encouragement, support, and comments on the manuscript.

Last but by no means least, for keeping me sane during the interminable process of writing, and for tolerating my occasional inabilities to disengage from premodernity, especially warm thanks is due to Nebahat Avcıoğlu, Zahid Chaudhary, Kryzstof Czuba, Kalleen Flood, Irene Leung, Stella Nair, Avinoam Shalem, Vijayanthi Rao, and Satya Pemmaraju. Srinivasan Padmanabhan has, as always, shown patience above and beyond the call of duty and offered unstinting support for this project throughout its history. Without that support this book would never have seen the light of day.

In claiming this project as a kind of collective endeavor, I should end by emphasizing the limits of collectivity—any glitches, quirks, or outright errors are entirely mine.

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