Dharshani Lakmali Jayasinghe is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature in the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages at Stanford University. Her research and teaching interests span topics in immigration, visa law and policy, exile, human rights, women’s rights, media studies, animal studies, film, and design thinking. She works on 20th / 21st century literature and film in English, French, Korean and Spanish.
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Featured project
Despite the influence of visa law and policy, little research exists on its history and development. When, under what circumstances, and in which politico-geographical space did the “visa” come into existence? “Transit” uses literary and linguistic analysis to develop an intertextual canvas of visa histories. The final product, an interactive digital media map platform, will enable users to trace the development of visa law and policy across time and space.
Astronomical Data Collection in the Medieval/Early Modern Islamicate world: The influence of the Zijs (Star Catalogs) on European Astronomy
Astronomical Data Collection in the Medieval/Early Modern Islamicate world: The influence of the Zijs (Star Catalogs) on European Astronomy
This project aims to research the praxis of practical astronomy in the Islamicate world. There are a plethora of manuscripts, Zijs (Astronomical Star Catalogs), that need to be studied, researched, edited, and translated. The goal of the research is to analyze the reasons for the astronomical data collected by Arab astronomers. To serve this purpose, an interactive tool—a Finding Aid—will be developed for the Oriental Astronomical Star Catalogs studied by 17th century Oxford English Astronomer John Greaves—one of the first Europeans to travel to the Orient on a scientific expedition. This tool will also be a teaching aid, an educational resource for students and researchers who want to study Arabic Astronomy in the Medieval and Early Modern era. It has only recently become apparent that the past historians of science focused mainly on advances in sciences in Europe, inadvertently overlooking the achievements and the influence of Astronomy from the Islamicate world.
Primary Investigators: