Dr Nadhra Khan

Dr Nadhra Shahbaz Khan is Associate Professor of art history at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan. A specialist in the history of art and architecture of the Punjab from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, her research covers the visual and material culture of this region during the Mughal, Sikh, and colonial periods. Her monograph Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Samādhi in Lahore: A Summation of Sikh Architectural and Decorative Practices was published as part of the University of Bonn’s SAAC series (Studies in Asian Art and Culture) in 2018. It is the first comprehensive study of this remarkable nineteenth century monument that never attracted scholarly attention as it was dismissed for being a confused mixture of earlier styles by the British ruling elite after Punjab’s annexation. Her latest article “Ayina-Kari in the Sheesh Mahal, Lahore Fort: Issues of Attribution, Appreciation and Interpretation,” in Artibus Asiae (2018: volume 78 no. 2), also highlights and refutes the colonial dismissive discourse built around Sikh heritage in the nineteenth century.

She has held research fellowships at SOAS, London (Charles Wallace 2010–2011), INHA Paris (2015), Princeton University (Fulbright 2014–2015), and Oxford University (Barakat Trust 2014–2015). Dr Khan has been working with the Aga Khan Cultural Service–Pakistan (AKCS–P), as Consultant Historian for their Lahore Fort project since 2016.

Book: https://www.amazon.ca/Khan-Samadhi-Maharaja-Ranjit-Sin/dp/3868932712