India's Nonviolent Freedom Struggle focuses on the Thomas Christians, a group of Christians in South India who waged a nonviolent struggle against European colonization during the politically volatile period of 1599-1799. India's Non-violent Freedom Struggle: The Thomas Christians (1599-1799) (Routledge, 2023) has three related objectives and unique characte ... Show More
Yesterday
Karen Pechilis ed., "A Cultural History of Hinduism: Volumes 1-6" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
In this episode, Raj Balkaran speaks with Karen Pechilis, Jarrod Whitaker, and Valerie Stoker about A Cultural History of Hinduism (Bloomsbury, 2024), a landmark six-volume series that traces Hindu traditions from the ancient world to the present. Each volume is organized around ... Show More
59m 55s
Oct 6
Digital Expressions of the Self(ie): The Social Life of Selfies in India
Selfies are more than fleeting images—across India, they shape how people imagine themselves, connect with others, and inhabit spaces. In this episode of the Nordic Asia Podcast, Prof. Xenia Zeiler from the University of Helsinki talks to Prof. Avishek Ray about his co-authored b ... Show More
25m 30s
Oct 5
John Mathias, "Uncommon Cause: Living for Environmental Justice in Kerala" (U California Press, 2024)
How can activists strike a balance between fighting for a cause and sustaining relationships with family, friends, and neighbors? In this episode John Mathias joins host Elena Sobrino to talk about Uncommon Cause: Living for Environmental Justice in Kerala (2024, University of Ca ... Show More
54m 27s
Jul 2023
Vivian Nun Halloran, "Caribbean American Narratives of Belonging" (Ohio State UP, 2023)
In Caribbean American Narratives of Belonging (Ohio State University Press, 2023), Vivian Nun Halloran analyzes memoirs, picture books, comic books, young adult novels, musicals, and television shows through which Caribbean Americans recount and celebrate their contributions to c ... Show More
1h 20m
Mar 2023
Rahul Sagar, "The Progressive Maharaja: Sir Madhava Rao's Hints on the Art and Science of Government" (Oxford UP, 2021)
Hints on the Art and Science of Government was the first treatise on statecraft produced in modern India. It consists of lectures that Raja Sir T. Madhava Rao delivered in 1881 to Sayaji Rao Gaekwad III, the young Maharaja of Baroda. Universally considered the foremost Indian sta ... Show More
1h 8m
Jul 2021
Supriya Gandhi, "The Emperor Who Never Was: Dara Shukoh in Mughal India" (Harvard UP, 2020)
In her magnificent and lyrical new book, The Emperor Who Never Was: Dara Shukoh in Mughal India (Harvard UP, 2020), Supriya Gandhi reorients and adds unprecedented depth to our understanding of the much memorialized but less understood Mughal prince and thinker Dara Shukoh (d. 16 ... Show More
1h 3m
Dec 2020
Narrating Africa in South Asia
Narrating Africa in South Asia (Special Journal Issue: South Asian History and Culture, Volume 11, Issue 4, 2020) explores the multifaceted and longue durée history of the African diaspora in South Asia. The themes of the articles cover many grounds, such as race, religion, socia ... Show More
1h 41m
Jun 2023
Douglas Kerr, "Orwell and Empire" (Oxford UP, 2022)
George Orwell was born in India and served in the Imperial Police in Burma as a young man. Douglas Kerr's book Orwell and Empire (Oxford UP, 2022) is a study of his writing about the East and the East in his writing. It argues that empire was central to his cultural identity and ... Show More
42m 30s
Feb 2022
Pankaj Mishra, research into Indian history
Pankaj Mishra's Run and Hide tells a story of modern Indian times, as the hidden pasts of wealthy, Gatsby-style tech entrepreneurs must be reckoned with.And to help put this modern India in context, Dr Pragya Dhital will consider the resonances of the tumultuous period of "The Em ... Show More
44m 48s
Jul 2023
Breaking Out: An Indian Woman's American Journey
Padma Desai grew up in the 1930s in the provincial world of Surat, India, where she had a sheltered and strict upbringing in a traditional Gujarati Anavil Brahmin family. Her academic brilliance won her a scholarship to Bombay University, where the first heady taste of freedom in ... Show More
15m 42s
Jul 20
M’hamed Oualdi, "A Slave between Empires: A Transimperial History of North Africa" (Columbia UP, 2020)
In light of the profound physical and mental traumas of colonization endured by North Africans, historians of recent decades have primarily concentrated their studies of North Africa on colonial violence, domination, and shock. The choice is an understandable one. But in his new ... Show More
41m 41s