South Asian Studies

South Asian Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of South Asia about their new books.

The Pioneering Life of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

March 18, 2024

The Pioneering Life of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

Manu Bhagavan

Manu Bhagavan and Ellen Chesler discuss Bhagavan’s latest book on Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (Penguin, 2023), admired sister of India’s founding Prime Mini…

Ashok Gopal, "A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B.R. Ambedkar" (Navayana Press, 2023)

March 18, 2024

A Part Apart

Ashok Gopal
Hosted by Jessica Zu

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) is perhaps the most iconised historical figure in India. Born into a caste deemed ‘unfit for human association’, he…

Stephanie Chasin, "British Jews and Imperial Service: Nationalism, Pan-Islamism and Zionism in Mandate Palestine and Colonial India" (I. B. Tauris, 2023)

March 17, 2024

British Jews and Imperial Service

Stephanie Chasin
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In the wake of the devastating WWI, three Jews headed the most valuable territory in the British Empire in addition to a strategically important new a…

Eva De Clercq, ed. and trans., "The Life of Padma" (Harvard UP, 2023)

March 15, 2024

The Life of Padma, Volume 2

Eva De Clercq, ed. and trans.
Hosted by Kshitij Jain

The Life of Padma, or the Paümacariu, is a richly expressive Jain retelling in the Apabhramsha language of the famous Ramayana tale. It was written by…

SherAli Tareen, "Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship After Empire" (Columbia UP, 2023)

March 15, 2024

Perilous Intimacies

SherAli Tareen

Friendship—particularly interreligious friendship—offers both promise and peril. After the end of Muslim political sovereignty in South Asia, how did …

Pankaj Jain and Jeffery D. Long, "Indian and Western Philosophical Concepts in Religion" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023)

March 14, 2024

Indian and Western Philosophical Concepts in Religion

Pankaj Jain and Jeffery D. Long
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

Philosophical concepts are influential in the theories and methods to study the world religions. Even though the disciplines of anthropology and relig…

Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, "The Inhumans and Other Stories: A Selection of Bengali Science Fiction" (MIT Press, 2024)

March 13, 2024

The Inhumans and Other Stories

Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Kalpavigyan—science fiction written to excite Bengali speakers about science, as well as to persuade them to evolve beyond the limitations of religion…

Patrick Olivelle, "Ashoka: Portrait of a Philosopher King" (Yale UP, 2024)

March 8, 2024

Ashoka

Patrick Olivelle
Hosted by Kshitij Jain

There are few historical figures more integral to South Asian history than Emperor Ashoka, a third-century BCE king who ruled over a larger area of th…

Priyasha Saksena, "Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia" (Oxford UP, 2023)

March 7, 2024

Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia

Priyasha Saksena
Hosted by Alex Batesmith

In Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia (Oxford UP, 2023), Dr Priyasha Saksena interrogates the centuries-ol…

Priyanka Basu, "The Poet’s Song: ‘Folk’ and its Cultural Politics in South Asia" (Routledge, 2023)

March 6, 2024

The Poet’s Song

Priyanka Basu
Hosted by Dave O'Brien

How can culture be authentic in the modern world? In The Poet's Song: Folk and its Cultural Politics in South Asia (Rouitledge, 2023), Dr Priyanka Bas…

Razak Khan, "Minority Pasts: Locality, Emotions, and Belonging in Princely Rampur" (Oxford UP, 2022)

March 6, 2024

Minority Pasts

Razak Khan
Hosted by Arighna Gupta

Razak Khan's Minority Pasts: Locality, Emotions, and Belonging in Princely Rampur (Oxford UP, 2022) explores the diversity of the histories and identi…

Baidik Bhattacharya, "Colonialism, World Literature, and the Making of the Modern Culture of Letters" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

March 5, 2024

Colonialism, World Literature, and the Making of the Modern Culture of Letters

Baidik Bhattacharya

In a radical and ambitious reconceptualization of the field, Colonialism, World Literature, and the Making of the Modern Culture of Letters (Cambridge…

Who owns Khadi? From the Indian Freedom Struggle to an International Trademark

March 1, 2024

Who owns Khadi?

Subhadeep Chowdhury

Why did khadi become so central to India’s freedom struggle? How did it evolve into an international trademark – and what does khadi signify in India …

Ina Marie Lunde Ilkama, "The Play of the Feminine" (HASP, 2023)

February 29, 2024

The Play of the Feminine

Ina Marie Lunde Ilkama
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

In Tamil Nadu, the nine-night autumnal Navarātri festival can be viewed as a celebration of feminine powers in association with the goddess. Ina Marie…

Christian R. Burset, "An Empire of Laws: Legal Pluralism in British Colonial Policy" (Yale UP, 2023)

February 29, 2024

An Empire of Laws

Christian R. Burset
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In An Empire of Laws: Legal Pluralism in British Colonial Policy (Yale University Press, 2023), Dr. Christian R. Burset presents a compelling reexamin…

Upal Chakrabarti, "Assembling the Local: Political Economy and Agrarian Governance in British India" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021)

February 29, 2024

Assembling the Local

Upal Chakrabarti
Hosted by Arighna Gupta

In 1817, in a region of the eastern coast of British India then known as Cuttack, a group of Paiks, the area's landed militia, began agitating against…

Knut A. Jacobsen, "The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Diasporas" (Oxford UP, 2023)

February 22, 2024

The Oxford History of Hinduism

Knut A. Jacobsen
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

Knut A. Jacobsen's edited volume The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Diaspora (Oxford UP, 2023) presents the histories and religious traditions of H…

Kunal Purohit, "H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars" (HarperCollins, 2023)

February 20, 2024

H-Pop

Kunal Purohit
Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu

Can a song trigger a murder? Can a poem spark a riot? Can a book divide a people? Away from the gaze of mainstream urban media, across India's dusty, …

Kartik Nair, "Seeing Things: Spectral Materialities of Bombay Horror" (U California Press, 2024)

February 14, 2024

Seeing Things

Kartik Nair
Hosted by Priyam Sinha

1980s Bombay was a time when a wave of low-budget, gory horror films made by independent film producers such as the Ramsay Brothers swept the B-movie …

Yamini Narayanan, "Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India" (Stanford UP, 2023)

February 11, 2024

Mother Cow, Mother India

Yamini Narayanan
Hosted by Yash Sharma

India imposes stringent criminal penalties, including life imprisonment in some states, for cow slaughter, based on a Hindu ethic of revering the cow …