FIRE Lecture: Society and Capitalism Across the Indian Ocean

From the venue:

Meet undergraduate researchers whose work spans borders and cultures. Each panelist will briefly introduce their internationally-engaged project before diving into a fast-paced lightning round of questions led by Sophia. Topics include the value of global collaboration, how students benefit from cross-cultural research experiences, and ways to connect with international peers.

 
 
Short Bio
Dr. Neelofer Qadir is Assistant Professor of English and affiliated faculty at the Institute of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is a scholar of cultural studies with a focus on labor migration, histories of capitalism, and forms of racialization, currently completing her first book project, tentatively titled Afrasian Imaginaries: Global Capitalism in Indian Ocean Worlds.
 
Talk
The 2025 FIRE grant supported Dr. Qadir's research in Lamu (Kenya) and Doha (Qatar) in July 2025. This humanities fieldwork to UNESCO World Heritage Site of Lamu Old Town (Lamu Museum) and Bin Jelmood House (a museum about slavery and unfree labor in Indian Ocean worlds) focused on how contemporary nation-states narrate their historical relationships to one another. This research forms a part of her first book project which narrates cultural histories of capital and labor's movements amongst societites that encircle the Indian Ocean by placing contemporary cultural texts (literature and visual culture) in conversation with archival materials and heritage sites.
 

Bio:Ghulam A. Nadri, a professor in the Department of History, Georgia State University, is an economic historian of early modern and colonial South Asia. Since joining GSU in 2007, he has taught various graduate and undergraduate history courses. His current research interests include the business history of the Parsis, global commodities, and agrarian/commercial capitalism in India and the Indian Ocean world.

Their Talk: With support from the FIRE mini grant, Dr. Nadri travelled to universities in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Delhi (India) in October 2025 brainstorming ideas to develop a collaborative research project. The aim of this project is to explore, archive (digitally), transcribe, and translate primary documents in Persian, Gujarati, and Kachhi languages and write the social and economic history of western India. His research focuses on merchant communities, maritime trade, and the business/commercial history of India (17th-19th centuries). In his numerous publications, he has extensively used English and Dutch records but has also underlined the need and significance of local sources for writing Indian history.

Additional Information
Who is this event open to?
Students
Faculty/Staff
Public
Is there an admission fee?  If so, how much? If not, type N/A.
NA
Is this event supported by Student Activity Fees?
(REMINDER:  Only fee-paying students can benefit from Student Activity Fees)
No
Perks
Free Food
Categories

• Atlanta Campus