Lisa Balabanlilar received her PhD from The Ohio State University in 2007. The focus of her research is the Timurid-Mughal Empire of Central and South Asia, and her broader research interests encompass Islamic South and Central Asia, comparative imperial court culture, movement and procession, memory and identity, and early modern Islamic Empires (Ottoman, Mughal and Safavid).
Dr. Balabanlilar’s most recent book is a biography of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, The Emperor Jahangir: Power and Kingship in Mughal India, London: I.B. Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2020. Her first book, Imperial Identity in the Mughal Empire: Memory and Dynastic Politics in Early Modern South and Central Asia, a study of the Central Asian legacy of the Mughal dynasty of India, was published by I.B. Tauris/Palgrave in 2012.
Dr. Balabanlilar’s current book project is a comparative global study of imperial pleasure gardens, called The King’s Garden.
She teaches a survey of South Asian History; a world history of Imperial Pleasure Gardens; as well as classes on Chingis Khan and the Mongol Empire; Comparative Early Modern Islamic Empires; and research seminars such as: Raj and Resistance; The Mughal Empire; and a history of world travel.
She has been the recipient of several prestigious teaching awards:
- 2018 Winner of the Brown Award for Superior Teaching
- 2016 Winner of the Brown Award for Teaching Excellence
- 2014 Winner of the Brown Award for Superior Teaching
- 2010 Winner of Phi Beta Kappa Sophie Meyer Farb Prize for Teaching Excellence
Select and upcoming articles and chapters include:
“The Peripatetic Mughal Royal Court,” for The Cambridge History of India, v.1, Part One: The Mughals and their Worlds, 1520 -1740, edited by Mrinalini Sinha, Prasannan Parthasarathi, David Gilmartin. publication 2021.
“Mughal Women, the Imperial Household and the State,” for The [Oxford] Handbook of The Mughal World edited by Richard M. Eaton and Ramya Sreenivasan, currently in publication.
“Mughal Mythical Ancestors,” for Brepol Cursor Mundi Mythical Ancestry in World Cultures, 1400 – 1800, edited by Sara Trevison, publication in 2018
"The Begums at the Mystic Feast: Turco- Mongol Influences in the Mughal Harem," The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 69, No. 1 (February 2010), pp. 123–147
"The Emperor Jahangir and His Pursuit of Pleasure," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 19, 2 (2009), pp. 1–14
BOOKS
Imperial Identity in the Mughal Empire: Memory and Dynastic Politics in Early Modern Central Asia
Lisa Balabanlilar
The Emperor Jahangir: Power and Kingship in Mughal India
Lisa Balabanlilar