• Hindi (elementary proficiency) • Italian (professional proficiency) • Persian (limited working proficiency)
Specialization:
Emma Flatt’s research has focused on mentalities and practices in the courtly societies of the Indo-Islamicate Deccani Sultanates of South India. Her doctoral thesis, which she is currently revising for publication, explored the world of the peripatetic courtier, who moved across regions and between courts in search of generous patrons and focuses on three case studies of different “knowledges” that helped a courtier attain success: letter-writing, wrestling, and astrology. These three case studies illustrate the ways in which the acquisition of expertise in a particular knowledge provided the courtiers with opportunities for self-fashioning. A second project concerns the history of the practices and philosophies of friendship and sociability in medieval South Asia and involves an in-depth investigation into the way in which courtiers developed and maintained relationships with their peers, superiors and subordinates. She is also interested in the history of the senses in South Asia, particularly the cultural construction of the sense of smell in medieval India and the intersection of the sense of smell with discourses of class, aesthetics, sociability, medicine and the body. Finally, Professor Flatt is beginning to explore the history of magic in South Asia. Drawing on manuscripts of astral, astrological and liturgical magic produced in the medieval Deccan, she is interested in exploring the position of magic in an Islamicate society; its intersection with religion and belief—both Islam and Hinduism; its use in practices of sociability and intimacy; and its intersections with philosophical and cosmological understandings of the nature of the world.
Relevant Experience:
• 2009-2011 Assistant Professor of History, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Distinctions:
• -ongoing Awarded Scoloudi Publishing Subvention (£800), 2009 towards the cost of publishing edited volume on history of gardens: Daud Ali and Emma Flatt, eds.,
Garden and Landscape Practices in Pre-colonial India: Histories from the Deccan, Routledge, (May 2011).
Awarded 2007-8 Irene Scoloudi fellowship (£14,700) at the Institute for Historical
Research, London.
Awarded Arts and Humanities Research Council doctoral scholarship 2004-2007
(£14,200 per annum)
Dissertations and Theses Supervised in Past 5 Years:
2
Relevant Courses Taught:
• HIST 135 South Asia til 1750 • HIST 292 Gender in South Asia • HIST 398 Kama Sutra: Love, Sex and Politics in Early India • HIST 490 The Mughal World: 1526-1707 • HIST 490 Sultans, Generals, Concubines and Domestics: Slavery in South Asian History • HIST 74 Emperors Courts and Consumption: The Mughals of India
Recent Publications:
• 2017 “Practicing Friendship: Epistolary Studies of Social Intimacy in the Bahmani Sultanate,” Studies in History, Vol. 33 No.1, February 2017, pp. 61-81.
• 2017 “Friendship in Indian History: Introduction” Studies in History, Vol. 33 No.1, February 2017, pp.1-6.
• 2016 “Spices, Smells and Spells: The Use of Olfactory Substances in the Conjuring of Spirits,” South Asian Studies, 32:1, 2016, pp. 3-21.
• 2015 “Māhmūd Gāvān”, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam III, 2015.
• 2015 "The Delhi and Regional Sultanates,” chapter for Roger Long, ed. History of Pakistan, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2015,
• 2015 “Golkonda”, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam III, 2015.
• 2013 “The Authorship and Significance of the Nujūm al-‘Ulūm: a sixteenth-century astrological encyclopaedia from Bijapur,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 131.2 (April-June 2011) pp. 223-244.
• 2011 “Introduction,” (with Daud Ali), in Daud Ali and Emma Flatt, eds., Garden and Landscape Practices in Precolonial India: Histories from the Deccan, Delhi: Routledge, 2011, pp. 1-17.
• 2011 “Heavenly Gardens: Astrology and Magic in the Garden Culture of the Medieval Deccan,” in Daud Ali and Emma Flatt, eds., Garden and Landscape Practices in Precolonial India: Histories from the Deccan, Delhi: Routledge, 2011, pp. 172-193.
• 2011 Daud Ali and Emma Flatt, eds., Garden and Landscape Practices in Precolonial India: Histories from the Deccan, Delhi: Routledge, 2011. 205 pages
• 2010 “Young Manliness: Ethical Culture in the Gymnasiums of the Medieval Deccan”, in Anand Pandian and Daud Ali eds., Ethical Life in South Asia, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010, pp. 153-173.
Searches are not case-sensitive.
Enclosing two or more words in double quotes will return
only faculty profiles containing the quoted terms in the
requested order (e.g. a search for "Public Health" will
only return faculty profiles that contain the phrase
'Public Health'.)
Use 'AND' in keyword box to search for words that appear
in any order in a faculty profile (e.g. a search for
'Public AND Health' will return faculty profiles that
contain both the individual words 'Public' and
'Health.')
Using 'OR' in keyword box will broaden your search by
returning faculty profiles that contain keywords on
either side of the word 'OR' (e.g. a search for 'Public
OR Health' will return faculty profiles that contain
either one or both of the words 'Public' and 'Health.' )
A shortened form of your keyword will further broaden
your search (e.g. a search for 'demo' will return
faculty profiles that contain words begin with 'demo,'
such as 'demographic', 'democratic'.)
If search terms are entered without quotes, they are
treated as if a logical 'OR' was placed between each
term. For example, a search for 'Public Health Malaysia'
will return faculty profiles that contain the individual
words 'Public' and/or 'Health' and/or 'Malaysia.'
Quickly enter the first few letters of the faculty last name.
Select the faculty name you are searching for from the
result list.
