About the event:
In conjunction with the Oceans That Speak exhibition, the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia invites you to attend a talk on The Malay World and The Sea where historically, the seas and oceans functioned as vital conduits linking the Malay world to distant regions, facilitating the movement of people, commodities, and ideas across maritime routes into the archipelago. In contrast, contemporary nation-states within the Malay world—namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei—have increasingly privileged terrestrial frameworks over maritime ones, contributing to the marginalization of the region’s seafaring past. This lecture examines a historical moment in which maritime connectivity profoundly shaped the socio-cultural landscape of the region, through an analysis of a nineteenth-century Malay travel narrative.
The Speaker:
Dr. Sumit Mandal
Dr Sumit Mandal commenced his appointment as the Muhammad Alagil Chair in Arabia Asia Studies with the Inter-Asia Engagements Cluster. He is a trans-regional historian whose research concerns the outcome of longstanding inter-cultural and inter-religious interaction in the Malay World- understood as a flexible and expansive cultural geography-and the Indian Ocean.
For more details and to register for the talk, click here.
