Personal Statement:

I study and teach the social and cultural history of South Asia and British imperialism. My research explores the role of British colonialism in reshaping the agrarian frontier of eastern Bengal and the political economy of intoxicant commodities in the nineteenth and twentieth century. I am broadly interested in commodities and capital, labor history, peasant politics, popular culture, social movements, and gender and empire. My courses include introductory surveys of South Asian history, commodity history in a critical global perspective, and upper division classes on public culture with a focus on the history of caste, labor, and gender. At the graduate level, my courses cover global approaches to South Asian history, empire and decolonization, and the history of the Indian Ocean World. 

Research and Teaching Interests:

  • Modern South Asia 
  • British Imperial History
  • Indian Ocean World Studies
  • Commodity History
  • Internationalism and Marxist thought
  • Historical Methods

Current Projects:

  • “A Primer for Rebellion: Indian Cannabis in an Imperial Archive.” (forthcoming)
  • “Bodies that Cohere: Notes on Ganja and Gender in Colonial India.” (forthcoming)
  • “Decolonization and the Question of Indian Cannabis.” (forthcoming)

Selected Publications:

  • “Vulture,” “Xerus,” and “Unicorn” in Renisa Mawani and Antoinette Burton eds. Animalia: An Anti-Imperial Bestiary for Our Times (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020)
  • “Dagga and Prohibition: Markets, Animals, and the Imperial Contexts of Knowledge, 1893–1925,” South African Historical Journal 71.4 (2019): 587-613. Abridged in “Cannabis in South Africa: The Duplicity of Colonial Authorities,” The Conversation – Africa, 4 Feb 2020; Points – The Blog of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society, 7 Apr 2020.
  • “Labor: Identities and Time under Empire” in Kirsten McKenzie ed. A Cultural History of Western Empires in the Age of Empire 1780-1920, (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 119-146.
  • “Talking History: E.P. Thompson, C.L.R. James, and the Afterlives of Internationalism,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques, 41(1), 2015. Republished in Fortado and Burton eds. Histories of a Radical Book: E.P. Thompson and the Making of the English Working Class, New York: Berghahn, 2020, 113-30. Book Roundtable: “Histories of a Radical Book: A Roundtable Conversation on Empire, Colonialism, and E.P. Thompson’s Making,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 22 (2), 2021.
  • “Time to move on?” Kritik, June 26, 2014.

Reviews

  • “Review. Samia Khatun, Australianama,” American Historical Review 125(4), 2020, 1408-09. 
  • “Review, Benjamin Breen, The Age of Intoxication,” Journal of British Studies 60(2), 2021, 440-41.
  • “Empire and Indifference,” Victorian Literature and Culture, 47(4), 2019, 835-42.
  • “Review. Stolte and Schrikker eds. World History: A Genealogy,” Itinerario, 43(2), 2019, 369-71.

Courses Taught:

2022-3:

  • Empire and Decolonization in South Asia

Previous Courses:

  • HIST 282G – Global South Asia 
  • INT 187AM – Race, Colonialism, and the Co-Operative 
  • HIST 88 – Survey of South Asian History
  • HIST 9 – Commodity History
  • HIST 9 – Commodities and Labor in Colonial South Asia 
  • HIST 189M – South Asian Public Culture
  • HIST 201C – South Asia and the Indian Ocean
  • HIST 202 – Historical Methods

Honors and Professional Activities:

  • 2021    Faculty Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies (2021-22)
  • 2021    University of California Regents Humanities Faculty Fellowship (2022-23)
  • 2020    UCSB Faculty Career Development Award     
  • 2016   Thomas and Barbara Metcalf Junior Research Fellowship in Indian History, American Institute of Indian Studies.
  • 2015    Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities (IPRH) Prize for Research in the Humanities, University of Illinois.