An aspiring science student who stumbled on to history serendipitously, I not only found a new passion but also promised myself that I will work to make the discipline accessible to everyone. History suffers from a reputation of being dry as dust and an insufferable list of facts that need to be memorised. Positioning myself against yellowed notes, verbose PPTs and droning lectures, in my class the students are motivated to reach conclusions and ideas by themselves. My role is to facilitate the journey. In this process, they discover that history is not a fossilised discipline but is an exciting subject. It is, to quote E.H. Carr, ‘an unending dialogue between the past and the present’.
Dr. Afshan Majid is Deputy Director and Assistant Professor at the Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts. Trained as a Medieval Indian historian, she holds a doctorate from Centre of Advanced Study, Department of History, AMU. Her doctoral research reinterpreted Mughal society and courtly culture through the writings of the sixteenth century historian Abdul Qadir Badauni, reflecting her long-standing engagement with textual analysis, primary sources, and socio-cultural history. She also holds a postgraduate diploma in Women's Studies. Her work bridges Medieval Indian history, Big History, Education and Gender Studies. She co-developed and co-taught one of the first university-level Big History courses in South Asia. In her free time, she can be found reading and re-reading Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and P.G. Wodehouse.
