Ron Sela
- Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of History
Education
- Ph.D. at Indiana University, 2004
Contact Information
|
| Goodbody Hall, Rm. 141 |
| (812) 856-7017 |
Background
I study the history and historiography of Islamic Central Asia – a region stretching from the Caspian Sea in the west to Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang) in the east – in the Post-Mongol era, with an emphasis on the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. My research examines Central Asia from within – not from the perspective of bordering empires, as it is usually accomplished – and most of my work requires a detailed study of unpublished manuscripts, primarily in Persian and Chaghatay Turkic, but also in a variety of other languages (Russian and different European languages, and for earlier periods also Arabic and occasionally, Judeo-Persian).
My recent project, a book about “Heroic Apocrypha” in Central Asia, brings to light an unstudied eighteenth-century corpus of legendary biographies of one of the most formidable figures in the region’s history – Timur (Tamerlane). By portraying the particular circumstances under which these biographies came to life, and by addressing the many political and social changes that our manuscripts described and perhaps even induced, my research delineates Central Asia’s cultural and political boundaries in the early modern era, boundaries that presently witness an intriguing revival.
Research Interests
- History and historiography of Islamic Central Asia, 16th-19th c.
- Central Asia's Role in the History of the Muslim World
- Apocryphal Traditions in Central Asia and the Middle East
Courses Recently Taught
- Introduction to Central Asian History
- Sources for the Study of Central Asian History
- Central Asia under Russian Rule
- Ethnic History of Central Asia
- Travelers & Explorers in Central Asia
- Nations, States, and Boundaries
Publication Highlights
Books
The Legendary Biographies of Tamerlane: Islam and Heroic Apocrypha in Central Asia. under contract with Cambridge University Press.
Islamic Central Asia: An Anthology of Historical Sources (with Scott C. Levi), Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming.
Articles
Ritual and Authority in Central Asia: The Khan’s Inauguration Ceremony [Papers on Inner Asia no. 37, 2003], 79pp.
“Invoking the Russian Conquest of Khiva and the Massacre of the Yomut Turkmens: The Choices of a Central Asian Historian.” In: Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques LX:2 (2006), pp. 459-477.
“The ‘Heavenly Stone’ (Kök Tash) of Samarqand: A Rebels’ Narrative Transformed.” In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 17/1 (January 2007), pp. 21-32.
