“The Rape of the Lock” by Alexander Pope published in 1712 is a mock-heroic narrative which satirically
glorifies trivial incident of cutting of locks of protagonist Belinda. This poem was written in the
Augustan Era (1660-1784) which is marked by the period of scientific reason and rationality, whose
effect can be seen on the writers of those…[Read more]

In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, when a new style of Persian poetry was developing in the Persianate world, several erudite literary critics appeared in India, whose meticulous critiques of Persian poetry was unprecedented in the long history of Persian literature. A close study of the works produced by these critics reveals their vast…[Read more]

This blogpost summarizes findings presented at a talk at Erfurt University on 16 May 2023, in the series KFG “Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formation,” Global Exchange: Trade, Knowledge, and Religion. In this blogpost we present our key argument that rigorous correlation between archaeological, genomic, and documentary evidence dem…[Read more]