43 – Layered Dynamics, Enmeshed Connections: Courtly Spaces in Islamicate South Asia, c. 1000-1800
Recent scholarship on Islamicate South Asia has increasingly understood courts as fundamentally social spaces of both self-assertion and negotiation. This panel builds on this prior work to explore the different layers and forms of connection characterizing courts and courtly spaces in Sultanate and Mughal South Asia. Panelists will explore the creation and reconfiguration of connections between courts with contested and rival claims to vested resources, between imperial and sub-imperial courts, and between courts and a range of political, social, intellectual, and mercantile networks. In tracking these diverse entanglements, the panel will seek to reflect the dynamic and complex enmeshment of courtly spaces with their larger contexts. This will entail considering the many forms courtly connections could take, from mutual exchange and reciprocity to contestation and negotiation to the exertion of force. This panel particularly invites contributions that consider definitions of the court beyond the conventional static locations within the royal palace or camp, through incorporating examination of a variety of settings and practices which could form courtly spaces. It also encourages reevaluating the epistemologies and conceptual frameworks brought to bear in studies of the dynamics of courtly relations, cultural production, and patronage networks. Contributions will in the process reflect on how the specific languages, archives, authorship, intended audience, and genre of the sources both help and hinder modern scholars in reconstructing these linkages.
