Shows / New Books in South Asian Studies
New Books in South Asian Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Rahul Ranjan, "The Political Life of Memory: Birsa Munda in Contemporary India" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
How do affective sites such as memorials and statues produce political visions, emotions, and opportunities? And how are they used strategically to further…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Jennifer D. Ortegren, "Middle-Class Dharma: Gender, Aspiration, and the Making of Contemporary Hinduism" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Middle-Class Dharma: Gender, Aspiration, and the Making of Contemporary Hinduism (Oxford UP, 2023) is a contemporary ethnography of class mobility among Hindus…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Matthew R. Dasti, "Vatsyayana's Commentary on the Nyaya-Sutra: A Guide" (Oxford UP, 2023)
In Vatsyāyāna's Commentary on the Nyāya-Sūtra: A Guide (Oxford University Press, 2023), Matthew Dasti unpacks a canonical classical Indian text, the…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Ian Patel, "We're Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empire" (Verso, 2021)
What are the origins of the hostile environment against immigrants in the UK? In We’re Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empire (Verso…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Joshua Ehrlich, "The East India Company and the Politics of Knowledge" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
The East India Company is remembered as the world's most powerful, not to say notorious, corporation. But for many of its advocates from the 1770s to the 1850s…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Charlotte Lydia Riley, "Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain " (Penguin, 2023)
Can Britain escape from being a nation trapped in its past? In Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain (Penguin, 2023), Charlotte Lydia Riley…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Development and Migration in Contemporary Asia
Is migration good or bad for development? How does migration affect those who leave and those who stay behind? How are rural and urban livelihoods…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Christopher T. Fleming et al., "Science and Society in the Sanskrit World" (Brill, 2023)
Science and Society in the Sanskrit World (Brill, 2023) lauds the remarkable career of Christopher Z. Minkowski, the erstwhile Boden Professor of Sanskrit at…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Guillemette Crouzet, "Inventing the Middle East: Britain and the Persian Gulf in the Age of Global Imperialism" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022)
The “Middle East” has long been an indispensable and ubiquitous term in discussing world affairs, yet its history remains curiously underexplored. Few question…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
A Better Way to Buy Books
Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has already raised…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
India, a Non-Aligned Member of the International System?
We kick off our Fall 2023 season of International Horizons with Upendra Choudhury from Aligarh Muslim University discussing the role of India in the…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Muḥsin Jāsim Mūsawī, "The Arabian Nights in Contemporary World Cultures: Global Commodification, Translation, and the Culture Industry" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
The stories in the Thousand and One Nights, or the Arabian Nights, are familiar to many of us: from the tales of Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba and his…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Divya Cherian, "The Owl and the Occult: Popular Politics and Social Liminality in Early Modern South Asia" (2023)
Today I talked to Divya Cherian about her article "The Owl and the Occult: Popular Politics and Social Liminality in Early Modern South Asia" published in…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Prachi Deshpande, "Scripts of Power: Writing, Language Practices, and Cultural History in Western India" (Permanent Black, 2023)
Scripts of Power: Writing, Language Practices, and Cultural History in Western India (Permanent Black, 2023) is a cultural history of western India from a…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Hafsa Kanjwal, "Colonizing Kashmir: State-building under Indian Occupation" (Stanford UP, 2023)
In her scintillating and brilliant new book, Colonizing Kashmir: State-Building Under Indian Occupation (Stanford UP, 2023), Hafsa Kanjwal details and…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Kerry P. C. San Chirico. "Between Hindu and Christian: Khrist Bhaktas, Catholics, and the Negotiation of Devotion in Banaras" (Oxford UP, 2022)
On the second Saturday of each month, on the outskirts of the ancient city of Varanasi, Shiva's own city, thousands of shudra and Dalit devotees worship Yesu…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Maximillian Mørch, "Plains of Discontent: A Political History of Nepal’s Tarai (1743-2019)" (FinePrint, 2023)
When we think of Nepal, we think of its high Himalayan mountains, or maybe the highlands of Kathmandu. But somewhere between a quarter and a third of the…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Ravi Gupta and Kenneth Valpey, "The Bhagavata Purana: Sacred Text and Living Tradition" (Columbia UP, 2013)
Today I talked to Ravi Gupta and Kenneth Valpey about The Bhagavata Purana: Sacred Text and Living Tradition (Columbia UP, 2013) A vibrant example of living…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Annie Rachel Royson, "Texts, Traditions, and Sacredness: Cultural Translation in Kristapurana" (Routledge, 2023)
Annie Rachel Royson's book Texts, Traditions, and Sacredness: Cultural Translation in Kristapurana (Routledge, 2023) presents a critical reading of…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Nishanth Injam, "The Best Possible Experience: Stories" (Pantheon, 2023)
The characters in Nishanth Injam’s The Best Possible Experience (Pantheon, 2023), his debut short story collection, are like many in India or in Indian…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Emilia Bachrach, "Religious Reading and Everyday Lives in Devotional Hinduism" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Religious texts are not stable objects, passed down unchanged through generations. The way in which religious communities receive their scriptures changes over…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Kalyani Ramnath, "Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942-1962" (Stanford UP, 2023)
For more than a century before World War II, traders, merchants, financiers, and laborers steadily moved between places on the Indian Ocean, trading goods…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Indrajit Roy, "Passionate Politics: Democracy, Development and India’s 2019 General Election" (Manchester UP, 2023)
In May 2019, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi won the world's largest election. Indrajit Roy edited volume Passionate Politics: Democracy, Development and…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Samrat Choudhury, "Northeast India: A Political History" (Oxford UP, 2023)
For much of the past three months, the northeastern Indian state of Manipur—nestled right up against the border with Myanmar—has been the site of a conflict…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Romit Chowdhury, "City of Men: Masculinities and Everyday Morality on Public Transport" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
In South Asian urban landscapes, men are everywhere. And yet we do not seem to know very much about precisely what men do in the city as men. How do men…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Thomas Simpson, "The Frontier in British India: Space, Science, and Power in the Nineteenth Century" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
In The Frontier in British India: Space, Science, and Power in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge UP, 2021), Thomas Simpson provides an innovative account of…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Ruchi Chaturvedi, "Violence of Democracy: Interparty Conflict in South India" (Duke UP, 2023)
In Violence of Democracy: Interparty Conflict in South India (Duke UP, 2023), Ruchi Chaturvedi tracks the rise of India’s divisive politics through close…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Nicholas Hoover Wilson, "Modernity's Corruption: Empire and Morality in the Making of British India" (Columbia UP, 2023)
When Robert Clive, the man who established Company rule in India was hauled in front of Parliament to answer for crimes of corruption, he allegedly responded…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Renny Thomas, "Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment" (Routledge, 2022)
Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment (Routledge, 2022) provides an in-depth ethnographic study of science and religion in the context of South…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Michael Baltutis, "The Festival of Indra: Innovation, Archaism, and Revival in a South Asian Performance" (SUNY Press, 2023)
Michael Baltutis' book The Festival of Indra: Innovation, Archaism, and Revival in a South Asian Performance (SUNY Press, 2023) details the textual and…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
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…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Diya Gupta, "India in the Second World War: An Emotional History" (Oxford UP, 2023)
In 1940s India, revolutionary and nationalistic feeling surged against colonial subjecthood and imperial war. Two-and-a-half million men from undivided India…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Mayur R. Suresh, "Terror Trials: Life and Law in Delhi's Courts" (Fordham UP, 2022)
In Terror Trials: Life and Law in Delhi's Courts (Fordham UP, 2022), Mayur Suresh shows how legal procedures and technicalities become the modes through which…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Tom Young, "Unmaking the East India Company: British Art and Political Reform in Colonial India, c. 1813-1858" (Paul Mellon Centre, 2023)
Unmaking the East India Company: British Art and Political Reform in Colonial India, c. 1813-1858 (Paul Mellon Centre, 2023) by Dr. Tom Young illuminates how…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Daisy Cheung and Michael Dunn, "Advance Directives Across Asia: A Comparative Socio-legal Analysis" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Advance Directives in Asia: A Socio-Legal Analysis (Cambridge UP, 2023) , edited by Daisy Cheung and Michael Dunn is the first book to consider the concept of…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
India's Development Diplomacy and Soft Power in Africa
In this episode, Kenneth King (University of Edinburgh) & Meera Venkatachalam (University of Mumbai), discuss their recently co-edited volume, India's…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Brenda E. F. Beck, "Hidden Paradigms: Comparing Epic Themes, Characters, and Plot Structures" (U Toronto Press, 2022)
Brenda Beck discusses her lifelong work on a Tamil folk legend, resulting in a graphic novel, an English translation and Hidden Paradigms: Comparing Epic…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Lisa Mitchell, "Hailing the State: Indian Democracy Between Elections" (Duke UP, 2023)
In Hailing the State: Indian Democracy Between Elections (Duke UP, 2023), Lisa Mitchell explores the methods of collective assembly that people in India use to…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Usha Raman and Sumana Kasturi, "Childscape, Mediascape: Children and Media in India" (Orient BlackSwan, 2023)
Children are considered to be a group of special interest by media scholars and advocates, especially because they are seen as a vulnerable group whose rights…
New Books in South Asian StudiesBombay Talkies
Debashree Mukherjee talks about the pioneering film studio founded in 1934 in the city of Bombay (now Mumbai) by Himansu Rai and Devika Rani. Its cast and crew…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Dimitry Shevchenko, "Mirror of Nature, Mirror of Self: Mirror of Self: Models of Consciousness in Sāṃkhya, Yoga, and Advaita Vedānta" (Oxford UP, 2023)
In Indian philosophical traditions, a reflection in a mirror frequently serves as a metaphor, suggesting that just as a face in a mirror appears where it is…
New Books in South Asian StudiesWirsching: Bombay Talkies B-Side
In this episode of High Theory, we continue our conversation with Debashree Mukherjee about the pioneering film studio Bombay Talkies, founded in 1934 in the…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Brahma Prakash, "Body on the Barricades: Life, Art and Resistance in Contemporary India" (LeftWord, 2023)
Brahma Prakash's book Body on the Barricades: Life, Art and Resistance in Contemporary India (LeftWord, 2023) is an interesting gaze into life, art, and…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Ajay Gudavarthy, "Politics, Ethics and Emotions in ‘New India’" (Routledge, 2023)
How do emotions mobilise in politics? How do they frame ideologies? Broadly focusing on these questions, Ajay Gudavarthy's book Politics, Ethics and Emotions…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Roluah Puia, "Nationalism in the Vernacular: State, Tribes, and Politics of Peace in Northeast India" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Roluah Puia's book Nationalism in the Vernacular: State, Tribes, and Politics of Peace in Northeast India (Cambridge UP, 2023) illuminates our understanding of…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Callie Wilkinson, "Empire of Influence: The East India Company and the Making of Indirect Rule" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Indirect rule is widely considered as a defining feature of the nineteenth and twentieth century British Empire but its divisive earlier history remains…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Ankur Barua, "Exploring Hindu Philosophy" (Equinox Publishing, 2023)
Ankur Barua's book Exploring Hindu Philosophy (Equinox Publishing, 2023) points to some of the diverse tapestries of Hindu worldviews where scriptural…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Anam Zakaria, "1971: A People's History from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India" (Vintage Books, 2021)
The year 1971 exists everywhere in Bangladesh-on its roads, in sculptures, in its museums and oral history projects, in its curriculum, in people's homes and…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Nile Green, "How Asia Found Herself: A Story of Intercultural Understanding" (Yale UP, 2023)
The nineteenth century saw European empires build vast transport networks to maximize their profits from trade, and it saw Christian missionaries spread…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Hindu Nationalism and Lower Caste Politics
Why and how has India’s Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, become so adept at appealing to and recruiting people from the lower castes? And what does this mean…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Daniel J. Soars and Nadya Pohran, "Hindu-Christian Dual Belonging" (Routledge, 2022)
Daniel J. Soars and Nadya Pohran's book Hindu-Christian Dual Belonging (Routledge, 2022) focuses on dual belonging within Hindu-Christian contexts. Written by…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Radhika Seshan and Ryuto Shimada, "Connecting the Indian Ocean World: Across Sea and Land" (Routledge, 2023)
The Indian Ocean world has a rich history of socio-economic and cultural exchanges across time and space. Connecting the Indian Ocean World Across Sea and Land…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Afghanistan-Pakistan Relations: A Clash of Identities?
With Afghanistan once again under Taliban rule and Pakistan reeling under a severe economic and political crisis, the relationship between the neighbouring…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Yael Rice, "The Brush of Insight: Artists and Agency at the Mughal Court" (U Washington Press, 2023)
Over the course of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Mughal court painters evolved from illustrators of manuscripts and albums to active mediators…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Nayanjot Lahiri, "Searching for Ashoka: Questing for a Buddhist King from India to Thailand" (SUNY Press, 2023)
Blending travelogue, history, and archaeology, Searching for Ashoka: Questing for a Buddhist King from India to Thailand (SUNY Press, 2023) unravels the…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
J. Barton Scott, "Slandering the Sacred: Blasphemy Law and Religious Affect in Colonial India" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
Why is religion today so often associated with giving and taking offense? To answer this question, Slandering the Sacred: Blasphemy Law and Religious Affect in…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Sangraha: Digital Cataloguing of Sanskrit Manuscripts
Sanjaya Singhal discusses Sangraha, an ambitious digital enterprise cataloguing India's millions of decaying Sanskrit manuscripts. Sangraha is a detailed…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair, "Sikh Philosophy: Exploring Gurmat Concepts in a Decolonizing World" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
In his new contribution to the Bloomsbury Introductions to World Philosophies, Sikh Philosophy: Exploring Gurmat Concepts in a Decolonizing World (Bloomsbury…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
The Outsourcer: The Story of India's IT Revolution
The rise of the Indian information technology industry is a remarkable economic success story. Software and services exports from India amounted to less than…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Leela Fernandes, "Governing Water in India: Inequality, Reform, and the State" (U Washington Press, 2022)
Intensifying droughts and competing pressures on water resources foreground water scarcity as an urgent concern of the global climate change crisis. In India…