Dr. Bob van der Linden, 2016-2017

Bob van der Linden (Ph.D. South Asian History: University of Amsterdam, 2004) is a historian and musicologist. His first book, “Moral Languages from Colonial Punjab: The Singh Sabha, Arya Samaj, and Ahmadiyahs” (New Delhi, 2008) was a comparative socio-intellectual history of these voluntary Muslim reform movements in the context of the imperial encounter. Subsequently, he combined his fascination for music, India, and British imperial history in “Music and Empire in Britain and India: Identity, Internationalism, and Cross-Cultural Communication” (New York, 2013). From a comparative global historical perspective, Bob is generally interested in the study of what he refers to as the study of music in imperial culture, i.e., parallels in non-Western national music formation, intellectual interactions in music between Europe and the rest of the world (especially India and China), the emergence of the discipline of ethnomusicology, etc. As a Writing Fellow at the Institute, Bob worked on the long-overdue biography of Arnold Bake (1899-1963). For further information about Bob and his work, see: www.bobvanderlinden.co.uk

Research projects

• Biography of Arnold A. Bake (completed)