Event Details:

 

Zoom Webniar Link:

 https://msu.zoom.us/j/96540591471

 

Please join us online as

Shayan Rajani presents:

Loving Men, Loving God: The Limits of Periodizing Sexuality in South Asia

Shah Hussain, a Muslim saint, and Madho, a Brahmin, fell in love with each other in sixteenth-century South Asia. They not only spent their lives together, but are also buried side by side in a mausoleum in contemporary Lahore, where they are daily visited by many devotees. Hussain and Madho’s was one among a number of publicly-recognized same-sex relationships. However, in retelling their story, I do not find signs of a more permissive past. Instead, I recover the reproach Shah Hussain courted by refusing to conform to the social and gender norms of his day. I also show the respect Hussain and Madho received, and continue to receive, beyond their own times. Altogether, this retelling underscores the limits of periodizing a homophilic past cut off from a homophobic present, and discloses the past’s desire to make its own future.

 

Bio:

Shayan Rajani is an assistant professor of history at Michigan State University. His research and teaching interests include Mughal history, the history of South Asia, and the study of gender and sexuality. His talk is based on a chapter that is part of an edited volume titled, Pakistan Desires: Queer Futures Elsewhere (Duke University Press, 2023).