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Dissertation by Thomas Wide
Oxford D.Phil dissertation
Academic Articles by Thomas Wide
Islamic Authority and the State: Genealogies, Rituals and Networks in Reconstruction of the Hui Communities in China, 2020
Anti-Veiling Campaigns in the Muslim World: Gender, Modernism and the Politics of Dress, 2014
Afghan History Through Afghan Eyes, 2016
On the Wonders of Land and Sea: Persianate Travel Writing, 2013
Afghanistan in Ink, 2013
This chapter aims to offer a broad survey of Pashto literature, both written and unwritten, as it... more This chapter aims to offer a broad survey of Pashto literature, both written and unwritten, as it stood at the dawn of the twentieth century, and to chart its unsteady transition into print during the first three decades of that century
Fostering Empathy Through Museums, 2016
Building the Future: the Role of Heritage in the Sustainable Development of Yangon, 2015
This paper offers a case-study of Turquoise Mountain in Afghanistan as a comparative study for My... more This paper offers a case-study of Turquoise Mountain in Afghanistan as a comparative study for Myanmar
Academic Reviews by Thomas Wide
New Global Studies, 2018
Thomas Wide visits a recent exhibition on the history of New York City
New Cinemas, 2013
The intervention in Afghanistan by US-led coalition forces has now become the longest in Afghanis... more The intervention in Afghanistan by US-led coalition forces has now become the longest in Afghanistan's history, exceeding even the Soviet Union's occupation of the country from 1979-1989. While much journalistic and academic ink has been spilt in attempts to untangle the complex social and political dimensions of the country, its cultural production and institutions remain relatively little studied or understood.
Papers by Thomas Wide
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 5, 2016
New Global Studies, Apr 1, 2018
Thomas Wide visits a recent exhibition on the history of New York City
This dissertation is an attempt to solve a puzzle: how and why did the poor, remote and isolated ... more This dissertation is an attempt to solve a puzzle: how and why did the poor, remote and isolated country of Afghanistan become a site of international Muslim aspiration and imagination in the early 20 th century? To answer this question, the dissertation focuses on the creation of ‘place’ - of Afghanistan in conceptual and material terms - out of the movement through ‘space’ of Afghan and Muslim travellers, and the inscriptions of such movement in texts. Through such a study, the dissertation argues that Afghanistan’s emergence as imperial counter-space and practical base for Muslims was the product of new physical and intellectual interactions amongst Afghan and Muslim travellers, powered by new technologies of steam and print. Such an argument resituates Afghanistan in connection to larger transformations taking place elsewhere. It thus marks an attempt to write late 19 th and early 20 th century Afghanistan back into global history. At the same time as drawing Afghanistan into that larger global story, however, the dissertation stresses the distinctiveness of the ‘Muslim turn’ to Afghanistan: how many of these new physical and intellectual movements relied on older physical or imagined connections with ‘the land of the Afghans’; how other movements offered strikingly original visions of what Afghanistan was and could be; how the Afghan court fostered and encouraged such movements through its particularist policies; how Afghanistan’s seemingly remote location, on the peripheries of the religious heartlands of the Middle East and the political and economic centres of western imperialism, made it such a prominent and attractive focus of Muslim interest and action. By plotting the inter-connections of Afghan and Muslim travellers over a forty-year period, the dissertation charts how Afghanistan grew to become one of the great hopes of the Muslim world. At the same time, the dissertation charts the growing gap between the idealized representation of Afghanistan and its reality. Finally, it illustrates how the ‘Muslim turn’ to Afghanistan ended in disillusionment and disaster, on Afghanistan’s plains.
Oxford D.Phil dissertation
Islamic Authority and the State: Genealogies, Rituals and Networks in Reconstruction of the Hui Communities in China, 2020
Anti-Veiling Campaigns in the Muslim World: Gender, Modernism and the Politics of Dress, 2014
Afghan History Through Afghan Eyes, 2016
On the Wonders of Land and Sea: Persianate Travel Writing, 2013
Afghanistan in Ink, 2013
This chapter aims to offer a broad survey of Pashto literature, both written and unwritten, as it... more This chapter aims to offer a broad survey of Pashto literature, both written and unwritten, as it stood at the dawn of the twentieth century, and to chart its unsteady transition into print during the first three decades of that century
Fostering Empathy Through Museums, 2016
Building the Future: the Role of Heritage in the Sustainable Development of Yangon, 2015
This paper offers a case-study of Turquoise Mountain in Afghanistan as a comparative study for My... more This paper offers a case-study of Turquoise Mountain in Afghanistan as a comparative study for Myanmar
New Global Studies, 2018
Thomas Wide visits a recent exhibition on the history of New York City
New Cinemas, 2013
The intervention in Afghanistan by US-led coalition forces has now become the longest in Afghanis... more The intervention in Afghanistan by US-led coalition forces has now become the longest in Afghanistan's history, exceeding even the Soviet Union's occupation of the country from 1979-1989. While much journalistic and academic ink has been spilt in attempts to untangle the complex social and political dimensions of the country, its cultural production and institutions remain relatively little studied or understood.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 5, 2016
New Global Studies, Apr 1, 2018
Thomas Wide visits a recent exhibition on the history of New York City
This dissertation is an attempt to solve a puzzle: how and why did the poor, remote and isolated ... more This dissertation is an attempt to solve a puzzle: how and why did the poor, remote and isolated country of Afghanistan become a site of international Muslim aspiration and imagination in the early 20 th century? To answer this question, the dissertation focuses on the creation of ‘place’ - of Afghanistan in conceptual and material terms - out of the movement through ‘space’ of Afghan and Muslim travellers, and the inscriptions of such movement in texts. Through such a study, the dissertation argues that Afghanistan’s emergence as imperial counter-space and practical base for Muslims was the product of new physical and intellectual interactions amongst Afghan and Muslim travellers, powered by new technologies of steam and print. Such an argument resituates Afghanistan in connection to larger transformations taking place elsewhere. It thus marks an attempt to write late 19 th and early 20 th century Afghanistan back into global history. At the same time as drawing Afghanistan into that larger global story, however, the dissertation stresses the distinctiveness of the ‘Muslim turn’ to Afghanistan: how many of these new physical and intellectual movements relied on older physical or imagined connections with ‘the land of the Afghans’; how other movements offered strikingly original visions of what Afghanistan was and could be; how the Afghan court fostered and encouraged such movements through its particularist policies; how Afghanistan’s seemingly remote location, on the peripheries of the religious heartlands of the Middle East and the political and economic centres of western imperialism, made it such a prominent and attractive focus of Muslim interest and action. By plotting the inter-connections of Afghan and Muslim travellers over a forty-year period, the dissertation charts how Afghanistan grew to become one of the great hopes of the Muslim world. At the same time, the dissertation charts the growing gap between the idealized representation of Afghanistan and its reality. Finally, it illustrates how the ‘Muslim turn’ to Afghanistan ended in disillusionment and disaster, on Afghanistan’s plains.