Looted South Asian Heritage - talk and workshop

January 23, 2026 \ talk 12-2PM, workshop 3-5PM \ University of Toronto Mississauga (MN4207)

The Looting Lab is pleased to partner with the Centre for South Asian Critical Humanities for a talk and workshop on looted South Asian heritage by Dr. Nur Sobers-Khan, curator and scholar of dispersed South Asian heritage.

Public Talk – Books, Swords, and Holy Relics: The Colonial Looting of South Asian Heritage

This public talk explores the entangled histories of colonial conquest and cultural plunder in South Asia. Centring on three major cases—the Delhi Collection, material associated with Tipu Sultan, and Tibetan artefacts taken during the Younghusband Expedition—it traces how books, weapons, and sacred objects were seized and circulated through imperial networks. By bringing these looted collections into conversation, the talk uncovers the broader patterns of dispossession wrought by British colonization of India, and how they continue to shape museums, archives, and public memory today.

Registration required: tiny.cc/Loot

Workshop - Tracing Twisted Trails: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to the study of Contested Cultural Heritage

This workshop covers theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of looted cultural objects, with special attention to material from the Delhi Collection. Participants will explore practical approaches to working with scattered archives, incomplete metadata, and fragmented records to piece together the stories behind contested collections. We will discuss how archival research, digital tools, and close attention to historical context can help make sense of looted heritage. We will also consider how this kind of research connects to antiracist and anti-colonial work, and what responsibilities scholars have when studying material taken through colonial violence. The workshop will be co-facilitated by Dr. Sobers-Khan and Isra Saymour, director of the Looting Lab.

Registration required: tiny.cc/TwistedTrails

This workshop is open to graduate students, faculty, and external researchers currently conducting research on looted materials or seeking to develop expertise in this field.

About the speaker

Dr. Nur Sobers-Khan is a curator and researcher specializing in Islamic manuscripts and South Asian heritage. She has served as Lead Curator for South Asian Collections at the British Library, where she led the AHRC-funded project Two Centuries of Indian Print on colonial looting and dispersal of manuscripts and printed materials from South Asia, as Director of the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT, and as Curator for South Asian Collections at the National Trust, reinterpreting colonial-era collections including material looted from Tipu Sultan's court. Her curatorial experience spans leading institutions including the Museums Commission in Saudi Arabia, Birmingham Museums Trust, and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, with research focusing on the transition from manuscript to print culture and the material legacies of colonialism.