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
Maria Heim, "Words for the Heart: A Treasury of Emotions from Classical India" (Princeton UP, 2022)
Words for the Heart: A Treasury of Emotions from Classical India (Princeton UP, 2022) is a captivating treasury of emotion terms drawn from some of India’s…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Max Haiven, "Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire" (Pluto Press, 2022)
Palm oil is a commodity like no other. Found in half of supermarket products, from food to cosmetics to plastics, it has shaped the world in which we live. In…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Ashutosh Bhardwaj and Judith Misrahi-Barak, "Kala Pani Crossings: Revisiting 19th Century Migrations from India's Perspective" (Routledge, 2021)
When used in India, the term Kala pani refers to the cellular jail in Port Blair, where the British colonisers sent a select category of freedom fighters. In…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, "Human Being, Bodily Being: Phenomenology from Classical India" (Oxford UP, 2021)
In Human Being, Bodily Being: Phenomenology from Classical India (Oxford UP, 2021), Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad offers illuminating new perspectives on…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Joseph Sassoon, "The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire" (Pantheon Books, 2022)
The Sassoons were one of the great merchant families of the nineteenth century, alongside such names as the Jardines, the Mathesons, and the Swires. They…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Monica Juneja and Sumathi Ramaswamy, "Motherland: Pushpamala N.'s 'Woman and Nation'" (Roli Books, 2022)
Monica Juneja and Sumathi Ramaswamy's Motherland: Pushpamala N.'s 'Woman and Nation' (Roli Books, 2022) examines Motherland, an important series of…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
John Keay, "Himalaya: Exploring the Roof of the World" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
“History has not been kind to Himalaya,” writes historian and travel writer John Keay in his latest book Himalaya: Exploring the Roof of the World (Bloomsbury…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Kasia Paprocki, "Threatening Dystopias: The Global Politics of Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh" (Cornell UP, 2021)
In Threatening Dystopias: The Global Politics of Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh (Cornell UP, 2021), Kasia Paprocki challenges two well-worn…
New Books in South Asian StudiesOn "The Mahābhārata"
When it comes to epic poetry, there’s a strong case to be made that the Ancient Indian story the Mahābhārata is the most epic. Clocking in at around 100,000…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Sushmita Nath, "The Secular Imaginary: Gandhi, Nehru and the Idea(s) of India" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Given the popularity and success of the Hindu-Right in India’s electoral politics today, how may one study ostensibly ‘Western’ concepts and ideas, such as the…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Charles Goodman, "The Tattvasaṃgraha Of Śāntarakṣita: Selected Metaphysical Chapters" (Oxford UP, 2022)
The Tattvasaṃgraha of Śāntarakṣita: Selected Metaphysical Chapters (Oxford University Press, 2022) collects excerpts from a massive encyclopedic work of the…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Elliott H. Powell, "Sounds from the Other Side: Afro-South Asian Collaborations in Black Popular Music" (U Minnesota Press, 2020)
From Beyoncé's South Asian music-inspired Super Bowl Halftime performance, to jazz artists like John and Alice Coltrane's use of Indian song structures and…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Yigal Bronner et al., "Sensitive Reading: The Pleasures of South Asian Literature in Translation" (U California Press, 2022)
What are the pleasures of reading translations of South Asian literature, and what does it take to enjoy a translated text? Sensitive Reading: The Pleasures of…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Eric Tagliocozzo, "In Asian Waters: Oceanic Worlds from Yemen to Yokohama" (Princeton UP, 2022)
In the nineteenth century, one group of American merchants reported an odd request from the Vietnamese emperor. An envoy asked if the traders could help…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Ruth Vanita, "The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics" (Oxford UP, 2021)
Ruth Vanita's book The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics (Oxford UP, 2021) shows that many characters in the Sanskrit epics - men and women of all varnas…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Janaki Srinivasan, "The Political Lives of Information: Information and the Production of Development in India" (MIT Press, 2022)
The Political Lives of Information: Information and the Production of Development in India (MIT Press, 2022), written by Janaki Srinivasan and published by MIT…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Kedar Arun Kulkarni, "World Literature and the Question of Genre in Colonial India: Poetry, Drama, and Print Culture 1790-1890" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
In 1818, the East India Company defeated the Maratha confederacy, acquiring vast domains in central and western India. Through coercion if not outright…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Sofi Thanhauser, "Worn: A People's History of Clothing" (Vintage, 2022)
Worn: A People's History of Clothing (Vintage, 2022) by Sofi Thanhauser explores linen, cotton, silk, synthetics, wool: through the stories of these five…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Arvind Narrain, "India's Undeclared Emergency: Constitutionalism and the Politics of Resistance" (Context, 2022)
Arvind Narrain is a lawyer and writer based in Bangalore. He is visiting faculty at the School of Policy and Governance, Azim Premji University. He is the…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Rustom Bharucha, "The Second Wave: Reflections on the Pandemic Through Photography, Performance, and Public Culture" (Seagull Books, 2022)
Lessons in resilience in the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India. Focusing on the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India between April and…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Steven W. Ramey, "Hinduism in Five Minutes" (Equinox, 2022)
Hinduism in Five Minutes (Equinox Publishing, 2022) is an accessible and lively introduction to common questions about the practices, ideas, and narratives…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Jianglin Li, "When the Iron Bird Flies: China's Secret War in Tibet" (Stanford UP, 2022)
In When the Iron Bird Flies: China's Secret War in Tibet (Stanford University Press, 2022), Jianglin Li presents an untold story that reshapes our…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Lavanya Vemsani, "Hinduism in Middle India: Narasimha, The Lord of the Middle" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
Narasimha is one of the least studied major deities of Hinduism. Furthermore, there are limited studies of the history, thought, and literature of middle…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Aisha Khan, "The Deepest Dye: Obeah, Hosay, and Race in the Atlantic World" (Harvard UP, 2021)
In The Deepest Dye: Obeah, Hosay, and Race in the Atlantic World (Harvard University Press, 2021), Aisha Khan explores how colonial categories of race and…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Cornelia Baciu, "Civil-Military Relations and Global Security Governance: Strategy, Hybrid Orders and the Case of Pakistan" (Routledge, 2022)
What are the problems with Samuel Huntington’s views about civil-military relations? Why do military coups persist in countries such as Pakistan, and what…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Thomas G. Cowan, "Subaltern Frontiers: Property and Labour in the Neoliberal Indian City" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
In urban and peri-urban areas across the Global South, politicians, planners and developers are engaged in a voracious scramble to refashion land for global…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Geetanjali Srikantan, "Identifying and Regulating Religion in India: Law, History and the Place of Worship" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
Judicial debates on the regulation of religion in post-colonial India have been characterised by the inability of courts to identify religion as a governable…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Online Sanskrit Study Resources
A conversation with Michael Fiden about University of Texas at Austin’s new open access online resource for second-year Sanskrit students, either for…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Political Deification in South Asia
How can we understand the processes through which political leaders, god-men, stars of all kinds, and big or small deities mingle together in the public…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Sanaa Alimia, "Refugee Cities: How Afghans Changed Urban Pakistan" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)
Situated between the 1970s Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan and the post-2001 War on Terror, Refugee Cities: How Afghans Changed Urban Pakistan…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Ayurveda and Alchemy: A Conversation with Dagmar Wujastyk
A candid conversation with Dr. Dagmar Wujastyk about her fascinating work at the intersection of yoga, Ayurveda, and alchemy. Dr. Wujastyk’s online course…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Amina Yaqin, "Gender, Sexuality and Feminism in Pakistani Urdu Writing" (Anthem, 2022)
As the first study of its kind, Gender, Sexuality and Feminism in Pakistani Urdu Writing (Anthem, 2022) offers a new understanding of progressive women’s…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Maaz Bin Bilal, "Temple Lamp: Verses on Banaras by Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan" (India Penguin Classics, 2022)
Today I talked to Maaz Bin Bilal about Temple Lamp: Verses on Banaras by Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan (India Penguin Classics, 2022). The poem ‘Chirag-e-Dair’ or…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Michael Francis Laffan, "Under Empire: Muslim Lives and Loyalties Across the Indian Ocean World, 1775–1945" (Columbia UP, 2022)
Michael Francis Laffan’s Under Empire: Muslim Lives and Loyalties Across the Indian Ocean World, 1775–1945 (Columbia University Press, 2022) traces a tapestry…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Yohanan Friedmann, "Messianic Ideas and Movements in Sunni Islam" (Oneworld Academic, 2022)
In his fascinating and painstakingly research new book Messianic Ideas and Movements in Sunni Islam (Oneworld Academic, 2022), the noted scholar of Islam…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Mansi Choksi, "The Newlyweds: Rearranging Marriage in Modern India" (Atria Books, 2022)
Two neighbors from the same village fall in love and elope to a shelter for couples that break caste norms. A Hindu woman falls in love with a Muslim man…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Martin Fárek, "India in the Eyes of Europeans: Conceptualization of Religion in Theology and Oriental Studies" (Karolinum Press, Charles University, 2021)
Martin Fárek's India in the Eyes of Europeans: Conceptualization of Religion in Theology and Oriental Studies (Karolinum Press, Charles University, 2021) is…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Asim Sajjad Akhter, "The Struggle for Hegemony in Pakistan: Fear, Desire and Revolutionary Horizons" (Pluto Press, 2022)
The collapse of neoliberal hegemony in the western world following the financial crash of 2007-8 and subsequent rise of right-wing authoritarian personalities…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Sandeep Banerjee, "Space, Utopia and Indian Decolonization: Literary Pre-Figurations of the Postcolony" (Routledge, 2021)
Sandeep Banerjee's book Space, Utopia and Indian Decolonization: Literary Pre-Figurations of the Postcolony (Routledge, 2021) illuminates the spatial…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Rita Dhamoon et al., "Unmooring the Komagata Maru: Charting Colonial Trajectories" (UBC Press, 2019)
To the degree that Canadians remember the treatment passengers on the Komagata Maru received when they were barred entry to the port of Vancouver in 1914, it…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Ruth Harris, "Guru to the World: The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda" (Harvard UP, 2022)
Guru to the World: The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda (Harvard UP, 2022) tells the story of Swami Vivekananda, the nineteenth-century Hindu ascetic who…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Sanjeev Routray, "The Right to Be Counted: The Urban Poor and the Politics of Resettlement in Delhi" (Stanford UP, 2022)
In the last 30 years, Delhi, the capital of India, has displaced over 1.5 million poor people. Resettlement and welfare services are available—but exclusively…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Nissim Mannathukkaren, "Communism, Subaltern Studies and Postcolonial Theory: The Left in South India" (Routledge Chapman & Hall, 2021)
Nissim Mannathukkaren's book Communism, Subaltern Studies and Postcolonial Theory: The Left in South India (Routledge Chapman & Hall, 2021) is a thematic…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
SOAS’ Yoga Studies Online
Raj Balkaran speaks with Jacqui Hargreaves & Ruth Westoby about SOAS’ exciting new online learning platform: Yoga Studies Online. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Vibha Joshi, "A Matter of Belief: Christian Conversion and Healing in North-East India" (Berghahn Books, 2012)
‘Nagaland for Christ’ and ‘Jesus Saves’ are familiar slogans prominently displayed on public transport and celebratory banners in Nagaland, north-east India…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
The Future of the Taliban: A Discussion with Ahmed Rashid
Are the Afghan Taliban now unbeatable? They have had two remarkable victories, first seeing off the Soviets and then the Americans. But while Afghans may be…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Sarah Fatima Waheed, "Hidden Histories of Pakistan: Censorship, Literature, and Secular Nationalism in Late Colonial India" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Censorship, Urdu literature, Islam, and progressive secular nationalisms in colonial India and Pakistan have a complex, intertwined history. Sarah Waheed…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
René Provost, "Rebel Courts: The Administration of Justice by Armed Insurgents" (Oxford UP, 2021)
Warzones are sometimes described as lawless, but this is rarely the case. Armed insurgents often replace the state as the provider of law and justice in areas…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Sanjay Krishnan, "V. S. Naipaul's Journeys: From Periphery to Center" (Columbia UP, 2020)
The author of more than thirty books of fiction and nonfiction and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, V. S. Naipaul (1932–2018) is one of the most…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Beyond Meat? Dietary Shifts and Meat Contestations in China, India and Vietnam
What explains the uneven meatification of diets in three of Asia’s core ‘emerging economies’? How and why is meat consumption changing today, and what role…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Usha Iyer, "Dancing Women: Choreographing Corporeal Histories of Hindi Cinema" (Oxford UP, 2020)
Dancing Women: Choreographing Corporeal Histories of Hindi Cinema (Oxford UP, 2020), an ambitious study of two of South Asia's most popular cultural forms ―…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Waleed Ziad, "Hidden Caliphate: Sufi Saints Beyond the Oxus and Indus" (Harvard UP, 2021)
Today, we speak with Waleed Ziad, about his book Hidden Caliphate: Sufi Saints beyond the Oxus and Indus, published in 2021 with Harvard University Press. Ziad…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Michael Slouber, "Early Tantric Medicine: Snakebite, Mantras, and Healing in the Garuda Tantras" (Oxford UP, 2016)
Michael Slouber's Early Tantric Medicine: Snakebite, Mantras, and Healing in the Garuda Tantras (Oxford UP, 2016) looks at a traditional medical system that…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Rahul Sagar, "To Raise a Fallen People: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Indian Views on International Politics" (Columbia UP, 2022)
Most people tend to mark the beginning of Indian international relations thought to Nehru, and his self-proclaimed attempt to build a true non-aligned movement…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Samhita Sunya, "Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema via Bombay" (U California Press, 2022)
Hello, world! This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. In this inaugural episode, our host Aswin Punathambekar speaks with Samhita Sunya, the…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Chitranshul Sinha, "The Great Repression: The Story of Sedition in India" (India Viking, 2019)
Chitranshul Sinha is an advocate on record of the Supreme Court of India and a partner in Dua Associates, Advocates and Solicitors, who primarily practises in…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Neilesh Bose, "India After World History: Literature, Comparison, and Approaches to Globalization" (Leiden UP, 2022)
In the twenty-first century, terms such as globalization, global, and world function as key words at the cusp of new frontiers in both historical writing and…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Peter J. Kalliney, "The Aesthetic Cold War: Decolonization and Global Literature" (Princeton UP, 2022)
How did superpower competition and the cold war affect writers in the decolonizing world? In The Aesthetic Cold War: Decolonization and Global Literature…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Sudhir Chella Rajan, "A Social Theory of Corruption: Notes from the Indian Subcontinent" (Harvard UP, 2020)
In contemporary policy discourse, the notion of corruption is highly constricted, understood just as the pursuit of private gain while fulfilling a public…
- New Books in South Asian Studies
Amber Sinha, "The Networked Public: How Social Media is Changing Democracy" (Rupa Publications, 2019)
Amber Sinha works at the intersection law, technology and society, and studies the impact of digital technologies on socio-political processes and structures…