My dissertation centers on the meaning of dreams as interpreted by literati in the late Ming (1368-1644), viewed through the lens of the 1636 encyclopedia Forest of Dreams. This thirty-four-juan tome is the largest extant Chinese dream encyclopedia and includes…

This dissertation examines the administration of Islamic family law in the British Straits Settlements and the Netherlands Indies through the lens of Arab merchants in colonial courts from 1860 till 1942. During this period, Arab communities tended to seek justice…

This dissertation is an initial attempt to historically contextualize the Ottoman alchemical literature and those who produced it. Starting in the late fifteenth century, the Islamic tradition of alchemy was transmitted and vernacularized by learned Rumis who would make significant…

This dissertation explains how the Indian Constitution that came into force in 1950, became part of the lived experience of ordinary Indians during the transition from the colonial state to the postcolonial republic. The Constitution by expanding the powers of…

This dissertation sets a detailed, technical history of ideas of Dutch-born lens maker and natural philosopher Nicolas Hartsoeker (1656-1725). Hartsoeker's case exemplifies the kinds of intellectual journeys a university-educated man with technical skills undertook to navigate the chaos and uncertainty…

This dissertation maps the ethnographic and archaeological work of the Dutch architects Aldo van Eyck and Herman Haan between 1947 and 1967, including van Eyck's writings, editorial work, and encounter with the sub-Saharan Dogon people, and Haan's expeditions and ethnographic…

This dissertation examines the historical evolution of Korean print culture by studying the ways in which the reading public expanded its boundary beyond the confines of canonical texts in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this dissertation, I analyze…

This dissertation chronicles the emergence of economic calculation as an analytical, argumentative, and moral tool in British politics in the half-century after the 1688 Revolution. During Britain's "financial revolution," novel questions about the nation's "Trade & Revenue" were contested in…