New exhibit at MSU Libraries celebrates endowment in Early Modern Studies
EAST LANSING, Mich., Dec. 2025 – This fall, the Michigan State University Libraries celebrated a recent endowment established by Professor Emerita Jyotsna G. Singh with a reception highlighting a new exhibit curated in part by Singh herself.
The exhibit “Europe and Empires of the East — Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals: Encounters and Exchanges, 1400–1800,” currently on display at the MSU Main Library, was co-curated by Singh and MSU Libraries Curator of Rare Books Tad Boehmer. It highlights the interwoven Muslim empires of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals alongside the experiences of European travelers through these Eastern empires, including portrayals of the people within these empires as they appeared on the London stage. Notable pieces presented in the exhibit include the first full English translation of the Qur’an in print, the first printed Arabic translation of the Book of Psalms and Shakespeare’s 1685 Fourth Folio.
The exhibit was celebrated by an event on October 16 at the MSU Main Library that simultaneously recognized the inauguration of the Jyotsna G. Singh Endowment in Early Modern Studies: Race, Empire, and Global Connections. The evening opened with a lecture by Dr. João Vicente Melo from the Pablo de Olavide University in Spain on “Portuguese Encounters with the Indo-Persian Islamicate World,” followed by additional remarks from former Head of Special Collections and Associate Director for Special Collections & Preservation Peter Berg and MSU Professor of Religious Studies Mohammad Hassan Khalil. MSU Libraries Dean Neil Romanosky noted in his remarks that the accounts within the exhibit “illuminate moments of exchange, curiosity and creativity, which is ultimately what we also hope to inspire here at MSU Libraries.”
In Singh’s closing reception comments, she called attention to the extensive materials in the exhibit and the complex relationships they illustrate between the interwoven Muslim empires and the travelers who encountered them. “The exhibit has about 20 books on display, with an additional three artifacts, that cover approximately 300 to 400 years of history around European encounters with three Muslim empires of the East,” Singh explained. “Viewers can learn how knowledge is produced and disseminated in the key texts on display, delineating the complexity of such encounters and exchanges — both in the early modern period and by inference in our own times. It also highlights the splendor of the three empires and the unparalleled cultural production that emanated from these courts, and that has enriched millions of lives through our present times.”
The endowment primarily supports an annual public event on the early modern collections at the MSU Libraries within the Stephen O. Murray & Keelung Hong Special Collections, with additional support for Libraries exhibits, classroom projects, pop-up events and further programming related to the early modern period at the MSU Libraries, including digital resources and print materials. Singh said her decision to place an endowment with the Libraries came from her desire to highlight the importance of historical context not only in research into the past, but also in understanding present-day societal issues. “By giving this endowment, I hope to make people aware of the earlier periods and why they are relevant to our current concerns,” Singh said. “Increasingly, it seems we no longer read historically; instead, we approach knowledge within a very presentist frame, which is good in a sense. But I think you can better study those contemporary social concerns and issues when you have a historical context. To hold in your hands a book published 400 to 500 years ago is a magical moment, while annotations and other marks on the paper also tell an important history.”
MSU Professor of History Liam Matthew Brockey, who provided remarks at the exhibit reception, shared his appreciation for both the early modern materials in MSU Libraries’ Stephen O. Murray & Keelung Hong Special Collections and the support that Singh’s endowment enables for their continued stewardship.
“Every semester I take my classes to use the materials that MSU has so carefully preserved for research and education,” Brockey said. “Since my courses are all on early modern history, especially the history of European colonial empires, Professor Singh’s endowment, in addition to MSU’s prior holdings, are invaluable to my teaching. After discussing colonial texts at length in the classroom, I can put those same texts in students’ hands at the library. Holding them and flipping through pages printed hundreds of years ago makes all the difference to the students — it really makes the topics we study come to life. Indeed, since my teaching also touches on the material history of books, having the actual books to examine is crucial. Seeing the rewards that this type of hands-on history provides has encouraged me to do even more teaching each year in conjunction with the MSU Libraries and with Special Collections in particular. The library staff is outstanding and always ready to help students and faculty make the most out of MSU’s rich and varied collections.”
The exhibit “Europe and Empires of the East — Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals: Encounters and Exchanges, 1400–1800” will remain on display at the MSU Libraries through Feb. 6, 2025. A video component about the exhibit produced by MSU Interim Director of Film Studies Pete Johnston is also available to the public on Youtube.
For information about the exhibit, including scheduling tours with the exhibit curators, please contact MSU Libraries Special Collections at spc@lib.msu.edu. Singh has published widely in the fields of early modern studies and postcolonial theory, including the forthcoming co-authored text A Contextual Guide to Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra: History, Myth, Gender, which can be found on the Edinburgh University Press website.
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