SiHP Faculty Seminar 01 | History of Agriculture Series
Venue: SiHP Seminar Hall, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur
Date: 10 October 2025 (Friday)
Presented by: Shamik Mishra
Series: History of Agriculture
Title: Reconstruction of the Agricultural Landscape from Historical Sources: A Case of XIX-century Nepal
Abstract: The work aims to reconstruct the agricultural landscape of XIX-century Nepal from available historical sources. The presentation will: (a) provide rationale for the undertaking, (b) give an overview of the existing methodologies of reconstruction as well as justify the method used in this work, and, (c) discuss values and limitations of the different categories of sources used.
SiHP Faculty Seminar 02 | Historical Economy Series
Venue: SiHP Seminar Hall, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur
Date: 17 October 2025 (Friday)
Presented by: Nischal Regmi
Series: Historical Economy
Title: Overview of Price Data Pre-2020 BS
Abstract: This seminar will present an overview of the market price data of early XX-century Nepal with focus on selected years. The discussion will centre around key themes, including (a) modern equivalence of the measurement systems used, (b) the prevalent currencies and their interconversion, and, (c) inferring and triangulating prices based on varied sources. Moreover, the presentation will highlight noticeable patterns in the market price that provide an informed direction for further research.
SiHP Faculty Seminar 03 | Philosophy of Technology Series
Venue: SiHP Seminar Hall, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur
Date: 31 October 2025 (Friday)
Presented by: Shailesh Pandey
Series: Philosophy of Technology
Title: Rethinking the Divide Between Nature and Technology
Abstract: Challenging the anthropocentric monopoly on ‘design,’ this seminar looks at efforts that position biological artifacts as cognitive technologies. By synthesizing extended phenotype theory with morphological computation, such works interrogate the precarious boundary between instinct and artifice, questioning whether the definition of technology rests upon the maker’s intent or the object’s own recursive functional output.
SiHP Faculty Seminar 04 | Visuals and History Series
Venue: SiHP Seminar Hall, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur
Date: 7 November 2025 (Friday)
Presented by: Bandana Gyawali
Series: Visuals and History
Title: Photographs of Swayambhunath c. 1888-1892
Abstract: This seminar will present three photographs of Swayambhunath with the aim of discussing 1) visuals and history-source, 2) visuals and fragments and 3) visuals and narratives. The conversation will focus on the kinds of historical awareness embodied in visuals.
SiHP Faculty Seminar 05 | History in Fragments Series
Venue: SiHP Seminar Hall, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur
Date: 14 November 2025 (Friday)
Venue: SiHP Seminar Hall, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur
Date: 14 November 2025 (Friday)
Presented by: Yogesh Raj
Series: History in Fragments
Title: The Nepali vyavahara compendium ascribed to Ne, c. XIV century
Abstract: Our understanding of legal practices in Southasia are generally shaped by two sets of beliefs: First, the Classical Sanskrit legal codes (smrtis and vyavahara texts) give these practices normative and structural coherence, and comprehending (translating and analysing) these texts ought to be considered as more useful than a mere antiquarian or linguistic exercise. Second, any variation in actual legal procedures, processes or outcomes found ethnographically could be explained as admixtures of various conventions, local innovation, deviation from the norms or historical accidents. There is a long scholarly tradition of examining both classical Sanskrit texts and field findings. Yet, vyavahara texts written in other non-Sanskrit languages of the medieval period have not received sufficient attention they deserve for scrutinising either set of the beliefs mentioned above. This seminar will see a preliminary discussion on methodological challenges in approaching one such fourteenth-century Newari text.
SiHP Faculty Seminar 07 | Historical Economy Series
Venue: SiHP Seminar Hall, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur
Date: 28 November 2025 (Friday)
Presented by: Nischal Regmi
Series: Historical Economy
Title: Further Observations from Price Data Pre-2020 BS
Abstract: The seminar outlines the systematic compilation of historical market price data across selected periods. A preliminary assessment reveals broad regularities alongside inconsistencies in coverage, classification, and reporting. The discussion highlights indicative patterns and discontinuities that inform methodological reflection and help shape the next phase of the research.
SiHP Faculty Seminar 08 | Philosophy of Technology Series
Venue: SiHP Seminar Hall, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur
Date: 5 December 2025 (Friday)
Presented by: Shailesh Pandey
Series: Philosophy of Technology
Title: How the Body Understands the World
Abstract: This seminar examines works that displace the Cartesian “I think” with “I can,” where the body is taken as the essential medium for world-inhabitation. We trace how habit and tool-use transform external objects into sensory extensions, blurring the boundary between subject and environment. Ultimately, perception is framed as an active, embodied grip upon a world of shifting significance.
SiHP Faculty Seminar 09 | Medieval Urbanisation | Abha Singh
Venue: SiHP Seminar Hall, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur (Virtual)
Date: 12 December 2025 (Friday)
Presented by: Abha Singh
Title: Medieval Urbanisation
Abstract: The establishment of the Delhi Sultanate brought dramatic changes in the cityscapes – with new markers and skylines – the mosques and tombs of the new rulers. The centralised state, high level of monetisation, liberation of the artisanal classes, new technologies, sufi movement, etc. all left deep imprints on the pattern of growth of towns in the medieval period. The Mughals further expanded the cities and a sort of symbiotic relationship seems to have existed between the towns and the country, though scholars have argued their parasitic nature as well. Historians have also contested whether the Mughal cities were ‘camp cities’ or architectural representations of a ‘patrimonial-bureaucratic’ empire.
SiHP Faculty Seminar 10 | Visuals and History Series
Venue: SiHP Seminar Hall, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur
Date: 19 December 2025 (Friday)
Presented by: Bandana Gyawali
Series: Visuals and History
Title: Fragments, narratives and metaphors
Abstract: We read section three from Roberto Bolano’s novelette Antwerp (2002) titled Green, Red and White Checks to explore the breaking of narratives or the assembling of non-narratives. Apart from attempting to understand the reader’s response to Bolano’s experimental writing, the seminar will borrow from literature to discuss possible ways of history-telling including the role of fragments and metaphors.
SiHP Faculty Seminar 11 | History in Fragments Series
Venue: SiHP Seminar Hall, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur
Date: 14 November 2025 (Friday)
Venue: SiHP Seminar Hall, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur
Date: 26 December 2025 (Friday)
Presented by: Yogesh Raj
Series: History in Fragments
Title: The Nepali vyavahara compendium ascribed to Ne, c. XIV century
Abstract: In the second part of the series History in Fragments, Yogesh Raj added a 16th-century Newari manuscript on the vyavahara composition ascribed to Ne muni to his source corpus and continued to discuss the problems of reconstruction and interpretation. He argued that thee manuscript ‘copies’ tend to be expositions when separated by centuries and intended for different set of readers or various groups of language speakers. The chronological layers pose philological challenges and also raise inter-related historical questions. For instance, how does one comprehend a difficult passage when (a) it does not correspond to standard Sanskrit dharma- and smritisastras; (b) the knowledge about the evolution of its language is at best sketchy; and (c) the practice it implied appear to be strictly local and witnessed neither by contemporary texts nor by today’s conventions.