About Samee Siddiqui

I am a PhD Candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying Asian History, focusing on Japanese-South Asian intellectual exchanges between 1905 and the Second World War. In particular, I explore South Asian anticolonial figures engaged in discussions surrounding religion, race, and empire.

Samee Siddiqui is a former journalist who is currently a PhD Candidate at the Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can find him on twitter @ssiddiqui83

NBN Episodes hosted by Samee:

Morgan Pitelka, "Reading Medieval Ruins: Urban Life and Destruction in Sixteenth-Century Japan" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

November 8, 2022

Reading Medieval Ruins

Morgan Pitelka
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

The Japanese provincial city of Ichijōdani was destroyed in the civil wars of the late sixteenth century but never rebuilt. Archaeological excavations…

Hans Martin Krämer and Julian Strube, "Theosophy across Boundaries: Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Modern Esoteric Movement" (SUNY Press, 2020)

October 12, 2021

Theosophy across Boundaries

Hans Martin Krämer and Julian Strube
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

Theosophy across Boundaries: Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Modern Esoteric Movement (SUNY Press, 2020) brings a global history…

Jessica Namakkal, "Unsettling Utopia: The Making and Unmaking of French India" (Columbia UP, 2021)

September 14, 2021

Unsettling Utopia

Jessica Namakkal
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

After India achieved independence from the British in 1947, there remained five scattered territories governed by the French imperial state. It was no…

David Veevers, "The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600–1750" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

July 28, 2021

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600–1750

David Veevers
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

This is an important, revisionist account of the origins of the British Empire in Asia in the early modern period. In The Origins of the British Empir…

Kama Maclean, "A Revolutionary History of Interwar India: Violence, Image, Voice and Text" (Oxford UP, 2015)

May 28, 2021

A Revolutionary History of Interwar India

Kama Maclean
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

Kama Maclean's book A Revolutionary History of Interwar India: Violence, Image, Voice and Text (Oxford University Press, 2015) draws on new evidence t…

Teach-In on Sheikh Jarrah and Israel-Palestine

May 24, 2021

Teach-In on Sheikh Jarrah and Israel-Palestine

Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

Today, I am introducing a recording of an event on Israel-Palestine organized by members of the history department at the University of North Carolina…

Joseph McQuade, "A Genealogy of Terrorism: Colonial Law and the Origins of an Idea" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

May 19, 2021

A Genealogy of Terrorism

Joseph McQuade
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

Today I talked to Joseph McQuade about his book A Genealogy of Terrorism: Colonial Law and the Origins of an Idea (Cambridge University Press, 2020). …

Ali Raza, "Revolutionary Pasts: Communist Internationalism in Colonial India" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

April 27, 2021

Revolutionary Pasts

Ali Raza
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

In this engaging and innovative history of the communist movement in colonial India, Ali Raza reveals the lives, geographies, and anti-colonial strugg…

Robert T. Tierney, "Tropics of Savagery: The Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative Frame" (U California Press, 2010)

April 22, 2021

Tropics of Savagery

Robert Thomas Tierney
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

Tropics of Savagery: The Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative Frame (U California Press, 2010) is an incisive and provocative study of the figure…

Zoltán Biedermann, "(Dis)connected Empires: Imperial Portugal, Sri Lankan Diplomacy, and the Making of a Habsburg Conquest in Asia" (Oxford UP, 2019)

April 8, 2021

(Dis)connected Empires

Zoltán Biedermann
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

(Dis)connected Empires: Imperial Portugal, Sri Lankan Diplomacy, and the Making of a Habsburg Conquest in Asia (Oxford University Press, 2019) takes t…

Hans Martin Krämer, "Shimaji Mokurai and the Reconception of Religion and the Secular in Modern Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2015)

March 17, 2021

Shimaji Mokurai and the Reconception of Religion and the Secular in Modern Japan

Hans Martin Krämer
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

Religion is at the heart of such ongoing political debates in Japan as the constitutionality of official government visits to Yasukuni Shrine, yet the…

Nira Wickramasinghe, "Slave in a Palanquin: Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka" (Columbia UP, 2020)

March 3, 2021

Slave in a Palanquin

Nira Wickramasinghe
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

For hundreds of years, the island of Sri Lanka was a crucial stopover for people and goods in the Indian Ocean. For the Dutch East India Company, it w…

Harshana Rambukwella, "The Politics and Poetics of Authenticity: A Cultural Genealogy of Sinhala Nationalism" (UCL Press, 2018)

February 16, 2021

The Politics and Poetics of Authenticity

Harshana Rambukwella
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

What is the role of cultural authenticity in the making of nations? Much scholarly and popular commentary on nationalism dismisses authenticity as a r…

Torsten Weber, "Embracing 'Asia' in China and Japan: Asianism Discourse and the Contest for Hegemony, 1912-1933" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)

February 12, 2021

Embracing 'Asia' in China and Japan

Torsten Weber
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

Embracing ‘Asia’ in China and Japan: Asianism Discourse and the Contest for Hegemony (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) by Torsten Weber examines how Asianism…

Richard M. Jaffe, "Seeking Sakyamuni: South Asia in the Formation of Modern Japanese Buddhism" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

January 29, 2021

Seeking Sakyamuni

Richard M. Jaffe
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

Though fascinated with the land of their tradition’s birth, virtually no Japanese Buddhists visited the Indian subcontinent before the nineteenth cent…

Manan Ahmed Asif, "The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India" (Harvard UP, 2020)

January 6, 2021

The Loss of Hindustan

Manan Ahmed Asif
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

Did South Asia have a shared regional identity prior to the arrival of Europeans in the late fifteenth century? This is a subject of heated debate in …