Aisha Valiulla
- AishaValiulla2022@u.northwestern.edu
- Field(s): South Asia
- Advisor(s): Rajeev Kinra
Biography
Aisha Valiulla specializes in cultural exchange, knowledge production, and literary culture in the Medieval Indian Ocean world. In her dissertation, titled “Sailors, Scholars, and Wonders: Arabic Scholarship and the Indian Ocean World, 900—1400,” she analyzes Arabic histories, geographies, and merchant accounts to trace the transition of the Islamic world into the Indo-Islamic world and the centrality of merchant accounts in the textual conceptualization of India.
She holds a BA in History and an MA in English Literature, both from Virginia Commonwealth University. She won the department's Lacey Baldwin Smith Prize for Teaching Excellence in 2020 and is an active member of the History Graduate Teaching Committee. Her languages include Arabic, Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, and some Gujarati.