New Books in South Asian Studies

Interviews with Scholars of South Asia about their New Books

Society & Culture
History
1201
Cabeiri Robinson, “Body of Victim, Body of Warr...
The idea of jihad is among the most keenly discussed yet one of the least understood concepts in Islam. In her brilliant new book Body of Victim, Body of Warrior: Refugee Families and the Making of Kashmiri Jihadists (University of California Press,
91 min
1202
Neilesh Bose, “Recasting the Region: Language, ...
In his new book Recasting the Region: Language, Culture, and Islam in Colonial Bengal (Oxford University Press, 2014),Neilesh Bose analyses the trajectories of Muslim Bengali politics in the first half of the twentieth century.
46 min
1203
Meir Shahar and John Kieschnick, “India in the ...
In India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), eleven scholars (including editors John Kieschnick and Meir Shahar) examine the Chinese reception of Indian ideas and myth,
59 min
1204
Pamela Price, “The Writings of Pamela Price” (O...
The Writings of Pamela Price: State, Politics, and Cultures in Modern South India: Honour, Authority, and Morality (Orient BlackSwan, 2013) is a wonderful collection of ten essays by historian Pamela Price,
48 min
1205
Sarah Besky, “The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor...
In this wonderful ethnography of Darjeeling tea, Sarah Besky explores different attempts at bringing justice to plantation life in north east India. Through explorations into fair trade, geographic indication and a state movement for the Nepali tea wor...
45 min
1206
Kavita Datla, “The Language of Secular Islam: U...
In her brilliant new book, The Language of Secular Islam: Urdu Nationalism and Colonial India (University of Hawaii Press, 2013),Kavita Datla, Associate Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College, explores the interaction of language, nationalism,
52 min
1207
Jamie Cross, “Dream Zones: Anticipating Capital...
Dream Zones: Anticipating Capitalism and Development in India (Pluto Press, 2014), the excellent new book by Jamie Cross, explores the ways in which dreams of the future shape the present. Centring in and around a large Special Economic Zone in south I...
52 min
1208
Loraine Kennedy, “The Politics of Economic Rest...
Loraine Kennedy‘s The Politics of Economic Restructuring in India: Economic Governance and State Spatial Rescaling (Routledge, 2014) is a timely and important intervention into the debate on how economic liberalisation is transforming the Indian state....
50 min
1209
Harleen Singh, “The Rani of Jhansi: Gender, His...
The Rani of Jhansi was and is many things to many people. In her beautifully written book The Rani of Jhansi: Gender, History, and Fable in India (Cambridge University Press, 2014), Harleen Singh explores four representations of the famous warrior quee...
49 min
1210
Ayona Datta, “The Illegal City: Space, Law and ...
The Illegal City: Space, Law and Gender in a Delhi Squatter Settlement (Ashgate, 2012) by Ayona Datta is a detailed account of how the law interweaves in everyday life in a squatter settlement in Delhi. The book forefronts space and gender as it explor...
57 min
1211
Amrita Pande, “Wombs in Labor: Transnational Co...
Amrita Pande‘s Wombs in Labor: Transnational Commercial Surrogacy in India (Columbia University Press 2014) is a beautiful and rich ethnography of a surrogacy clinic. The book details the surrogacy process from start to finish,
62 min
1212
Barbara Harriss-White, “Dalits and Adivasis in ...
Dalits and Adivasis in India’s Business Economy: Three Essays and an Atlas (Three Essay Collective, 2013) is a wonderful new book by Barbara Harriss-White and small team of collaborators – Elisabetta Basile, Anita Dixit, Pinaki Joddar,
67 min
1213
Tariq Jazeel, “Sacred Modernity: Nature, Enviro...
Ruhuna National Park and ‘tropical modernism’ architecture are aesthetically analysed in Sacred Modernity: Nature, Environment, and the Postcolonial Geographies of Sri Lankan Nationhood (Liverpool University Press, 2013) by Tariq Jazeel.
66 min
1214
Stephen Legg, “Prostitution and the Ends of Emp...
The spatial politics of brothels in late-British India are the subject of Stephen Legg‘s second book Prostitution and the Ends of Empire: Scale, Governmentalities, and Interwar India, published by Duke University Press in 2014.
49 min
1215
Iqbal Sevea, “The Political Philosophy of Muham...
The towering Indian Muslim poet and intellectual Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938) is among the most contested figures in the intellectual and political history of modern Islam. Heralded by some as the father of Pakistan and by others as a champion of pan-Islam...
54 min
1216
Karen Pechilis, “South Asian Religions: Traditi...
If you’re going to teach a broadly themed survey course, you’ll probably need to assign some readings. One option is to assemble one of those photocopied course readers, full of excerpts taken from different sources. However,
66 min
1217
Aswin Punthamabekar, “From Bombay to Bollywood:...
Aswin Punthamabekar‘s From Bombay to Bollywood: The Making of a Global Media Industry (New York University Press, 2013) offers a deeply researched and richly theorized look at the evolution of the world’s largest film industry over the past few decades...
47 min
1218
Afsar Mohammad, “The Festival of Pirs: Popular ...
Several studies about Islam in Asian contexts highlight the pluralistic environment that Muslims inhabit and interplay of various religious traditions that color local practice and thought. In The Festival of Pirs: Popular Islam and Shared Devotion in ...
20 min
1219
Carla Bellamy, “The Powerful Ephemeral: Everyda...
In The Powerful Ephemeral: Everyday Healing in an Ambiguously Islamic Place (University of California Press, 2011), Carla Bellamy explores the role of saint shrines in India, while focusing on a particular venue known as Husain Tekri, or “Husain Hill.
59 min
1220
Sunil S. Amrith, “Crossing the Bay of Bengal: T...
When historians think oceanically, when they populate their books with characters that include seas and monsoons along with human beings, what results is a very different way of thinking about time, space, and the ways that their interactions shape hum...
65 min
1221
Robert Yelle, “The Language of Disenchantment: ...
What is the nature of secularization? How distant are we from the magical world of the past? Perhaps, we are not as far as many people think. In the fascinating new book, The Language of Disenchantment: Protestant Literalism and Colonial Discourse in B...
66 min
1222
Teena Purohit, “The Aga Khan Case: Religion and...
How does colonial power, both discursive and institutional, transform the normative boundaries and horizons of religious identities? Teena Purohit, Assistant Professor of Religion at Boston University, examines this question in The Aga Khan Case: Relig...
59 min
1223
Deborah Mayersen and Annie Pohlman, “Genocide a...
Genocide studies has been a growth field for a couple of decades. Books and articles have appeared steadily, universities have created programs and centers and the broader public has become increasingly interested in the subject. Nevertheless,
57 min
1224
James A. Milward, “The Silk Road: A Very Short ...
James A. Milward‘s new book offers a thoughtful and spirited history of the silk road for general readers.The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2013) is part of the Oxford “A Very Short Introduction” series.
67 min
1225
Matthew W. Mosca, “From Frontier Policy to Fore...
Matthew Mosca‘s impressively researched and carefully structured new book maps the transformation of geopolitical worldviews in a crucial period of Qing and global history. From Frontier Policy to Foreign Policy: The Question of India and the Transform...
63 min