New Books In South Asian Studies

Period Matters is a groundbreaking anthology edited by Farah Ahamed that explores the cultural, social, and political dimensions of menstruation in South Asia. Through a diverse collection of essays, personal narratives, poetry, and artwork, the book sheds light on the stigma, myths, and challenges surrounding periods. Featuring contributions from writers, activists, academics, and artists, it examines issues such as menstrual health, period poverty, gender inequality, and sustainable solutions. By amplifying voices that are oft excluded mainstream discussions, Period Matters challenges taboos and calls for greater awareness, education, and policy change in the region. Farah Ahamed is the editor of Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia, published by Pan Macmillan India in 2022 (periodmattersbook.com). The book has been described as ‘an essential book about the female body that dispels misconceptions,’ by Book Riot. In 2022, Farah was selected as the Financial Times's Woman of the Year for her work in bre

Welcome to the Global Corporations Special Series on the Law Channel on the New Books Network. This Special Series is dedicated to interviews with scholars about recent books engaging with different aspects of global corporations – with a focus on the role of law and legal forms. Our guest today is Dr. Joshua Ehrlich, Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Macau. Josh is a historian of knowledge and political thought with a focus on the East India Company and the British Empire in South and Southeast Asia. We spoke with Josh in a live event as part of a workshop in Hong Kong on the history of companies in Asia about his first book, The East India Company and the Politics of Knowledge which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023. The book is a deeply researched and well-written account of how East India Company officials developed and deployed ideas about knowledge to bolster its own authority, and to manage the transition from corporate sovereignty towards unitary s

Drawing Coastlines: Climate Anxieties and the Visual Reinvention of Mumbai's Shore (Cornell UP, 2024) reveals the ways that technical images such as weather infographics, sea-level projections, and surveys are fast remaking Mumbai's coasts and coastal futures. They set in place infrastructural interventions, vocabularies of development and conservation, and their lines and dots inscribe material conditions of existence and horizons of loss that entangle life forms. V. Chitra interlaces graphics and text by redrawing scientific images, the moments of their construction, the choices and consequences of what gets drawn and what does not, and how images are seen, performed, and manifest. These visual reconstructions show how images remake human-nonhuman relationships, arrange urban politics, and materialize landscapes in complex and contradictory ways. The multimodal format of Drawing Coastlines engages in the politics of its context where words and images combine to create coastal worlds, and to find, through a

Crossing Lines: Cross-Ethnic Coalitions in India and Prospects for Minority Representation (Routledge, 2024) explains why, how, and where ethnic political parties unexpectedly seek votes from non-coethnics and when voters support non-coethnic parties. It draws on case studies of three Indian states (Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan) and of Indian national elections to demonstrate how differences in party systems impact political party strategies and voter choices. It shows that multipolar party systems encourage political parties to provide physical security, representation, and economic benefits for minorities, especially Muslims, in India and as a result, foster cross-ethnic links between parties and voters. However, as political arenas become dominated by two or even one party, advocacy for the interests of marginalized groups declines, weakening cross-ethnic linkages. The book thus explains why representation and advocacy for Muslims in Uttar Pradesh and at the national level has alternated dramatically i

What is the global attention economy, and how does this perspective help us make sense of the relationship between India and the Global North? In this episode, we discuss these issues, focusing particularly on the current and oftentimes critical coverage of Indian politics and democracy in the western media. Our guest is Harish Pedaprolu from the University of Oslo’s Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas. Kenneth Bo Nielsen is a social anthropologist and leader of the Centre for South Asian Democracy at the University of Oslo Harish Pedaprolu is at the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

In 1945 to 1946, postwar India was enthralled by the treason trial of three officers—formerly of the Indian National Army, who fought against the British in the Second World War. The trial sparked outrage across the country, among ordinary people, members of the pro-independence movement and, worryingly for the British Raj, members of the Indian army. The end-result? Claude Auchinleck, commander-in-chief of the Indian army, commuted the INA officers’ sentences. Just over a year later, India and Pakistan were independent countries. Ashis Ray joins us today to talk about these events, described in his recent book The Trial that Shook Britain: How a Court Martial Hastened Acceptance of Indian Independence (Routledge, 2024) Ashis Ray has been a foreign correspondent since 1977, broadcasting on BBC, CNN and ITN and writing for Ananda Bazar Group, The Times of India, The Tribune, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Times, Financial Times and Nikkei Asia, among other publications. He was CNN’

Sri Krishna Prem: A Wing and a Prayer is an in-depth, spiritual biography of a British fighter pilot (WW I), Ronald Nixon (1898-1965). Raised in an intellectually vibrant family, educated at Cambridge, he had a religious experience during one of his flights as a RAF pilot, and when the war ended, he embarked on a religious/philosophical journey that carried him to India, first as a university professor, and then into the religious world of his mentors, the university's vice-chancellor, G.N. Chakravarti and his wife, Monica (Yashoda Mai). Initiated by Yashoda Mai, he joined a movement celebrating the 16th century saint and reformer, Sri Krishna Chaitanya (1486-1533) and helped establish the still-functioning Mirtola ashram. Along the way he studied Theosophy and Buddhism and towards the end of his life developed a philosophy of his own that, though based on the religious traditions and philosophies he practiced and studied, was more universal in scope than the traditions he was formally connected with. Chapple

Punjab Sounds (Routledge, 2024) nuances our understanding of the region's imbrications with sound. It argues that rather than being territorially bounded, the region only emerges in 'regioning', i.e., in words, gestures, objects, and techniques that do the region. Regioning sound reveals the relationship between sound and the region in three interlinked ways: in doing, knowing, and feeling the region through sound. The volume covers several musical genres of the Punjab region, including within its geographical remit the Punjabi diaspora and east and west Punjab. It also provides new understandings of the role that ephemeral cultural expressions, especially music and sound, play in the formulation of Punjabi identity. Featuring contributions from scholars across North America, South Asia, Europe, and the UK, it brings together diverse perspectives. The chapters use a range of different methods, ranging from computational analysis and ethnography to close textual analysis, demonstrating some of the ways in whic

The Other Rāma (SUNY Press, 2020) presents a systematic analysis of the myth cycle of Paraśurāma ("Rāma with the Axe"), an avatára of Viṣṇu best known for decapitating his own mother and annihilating twenty-one generations of the Katriya warrior caste in an extermination campaign frequently referred to as "genocide" by modern scholars. Compared to Rāma and Ka, the other human forms of Viṣṇu, Paraśurāma has a much darker reputation, with few temples devoted to him and scant worshippers. He has also attracted far less scholarly attention. But dozens of important castes and clans across the subcontinent claim Paraśurāma as the originator of their bloodline, and his mother, Reukā, is worshipped in the form of a severed head throughout South India. Using the tools of comparative mythology and psychoanalysis, Brian Collins identifies three major motifs in the mythology of Paraśurāma: his hybrid status as a Brahmin warrior, his act of matricide, and his bloody one-man war to cleanse the earth of Katriyas. Collins co

Mick Brown’s The Nirvana Express: How the Search for Enlightenment Went West (Oxford UP, 2023) is a riveting account about the West's engagement with Eastern spirituality across a century. It traces the life of multiple characters that intersected across time and space to create a network of interlinking stories about saints, salesmen and scoundrels all involved in spirituality. From Edwin Arnold, whose epic poem about the life of the Buddha became a best-seller in Victorian Britain, to the occultist and magician Aleister Crowley; and from spiritual teachers Jiddu Krishnamurti, Meher Baba and Ramana Maharshi to the controversial guru Rajneesh, The Nirvana Express is an exhilarating, sometimes troubling journey through the West's search for enlightenment. Archit Nanda is PhD scholar in Comparative Literature at Queen Mary University of London. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studi

The Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram: Co-Creator of the Integral Yoga (Lexington Books, 2024) analyzes the contributions of the Mother (née Mirra Alfassa, 1878-1973) to the Integral Yoga that she and Sri Aurobindo (né Aurobindo Ghose, 1872-1950) co-created for his ashram. Scholars have ignored Mirra for Aurobindo, which prevents a full understanding of their spiritual practice. Scholars have also avoided examining work Aurobindo produced after they began their partnership in 1920 until his death in 1950, and privilege the written output in his journal Arya from 1914 to 1921. In this initial fertile period, he put forth his innovative teaching about what he called the “Supermind,” an emergent human faculty that he said would manifest a new humanity and a new earth through Mirra’s body. Mirra claimed that after his death in 1956 this manifestation happened as he foretold. Mirra’s work in the ashram from his death until hers in 1973 reveals important ways that she both fulfilled and changed Aurobindo’s initial

In this episode, Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with David Gordon White, a distinguished indologist and scholar of Tantra. Our conversation focuses on David’s most recent project tracing the transregional histories of spirits, gods, demons, and their associated rituals across Eurasia. Along the way, we dive into an intellectual conversation about dog-headed men, angry goddesses, alchemical mercury, body-snatching yogis, the origins of Dracula, and much, much more. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out our members-only benefits on blackberyl.substack.com. Enjoy the show! Resources mentioned David Gordon White, Daemons are Forever (2021) David Gordon White, Myths of the Dog-Man (1991) David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body (1997) David Gordon White, Kiss of the Yogini (2006) David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (2011) Michel Strick

In Postcolonial Bollywood and Muslim Identity: Production, Representation, and Reception (Oxford UP, 2024), Nadira Khatun explores the contentious Muslim identity in contemporary India as reflected in recent Bollywood films. She argues that the approach towards Muslim identity in Bollywood films are influenced by the changing political landscape from Nehruvian India to the rise of BJP, which views Hindus and Muslims as separate religious communities instead of recognizing the syncretic culture manifesting in Hindu-Muslim unity. By analyzing the representation of Muslims in various films like Roja, Fanna, Mission Kashmir, Black Friday, New York, A Wednesday, Sarfarosh, she shows that the militant portrayal of Muslims is good for commercial success as opposed to a secular image. Overall, the study problematizes Muslim identity formation in Bollywood against the backdrop of nationalism and communalism in India. Author: Dr. Nadira Khatun, Associate Professor of Communications, Xavier University, India Host: Dr. N

An astonishing variety of murals greet visitors to the temples and palaces of southern India. Beautiful in execution and extensive in scope, murals painted on walls and ceilings adorn the most important spaces of early modern religious and political performance. Scene by scene, histories of holy sites, portraits that incorporate historical figures into mythic landscapes, and Tamil and Telugu inscriptions that evoke the imagined topographies of devotional poetry unfold before the mobile spectator. Body, History, Myth reconceives the relationship between art and devotion in South India by describing how the extraordinary sensory experience of a viewing body in motion unfurls a sacred narrative exquisitely designed to teach, impress, and inspire. Anna Lise Seastrand offers new insights into the arts of early modern southern India, bringing to life one of the most culturally vibrant yet least understood periods in Indian art. She shows how temple visitors become active participants in the paintings through their

What is Hinduism? For centuries, that question was particularly thorny, both for local Indians and for colonial outsiders. People inside and outside the country tried to define what Hinduism was. Missionaries grappled with Hindu practices, finding both similarities and dangerous differences with their own Christian faith. The East India Company adopted several Hindu rituals to keep the peace, much to the chagrin of officials back in London. And, increasingly, Indians began to define what Hinduism meant as part of a broader political awakening. Manu Pillai tells that story in his latest book Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity (Allen Lane: 2024) Manu Pillai is the author of the critically acclaimed The Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the House of Travancore (HarperCollins: 2016), Rebels Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji (Juggernaut: 2018), The Courtesan, the Mahatma, and the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History (Context: 2019) and False Allies: India's Maharajahs in

The years leading up to the independence and accompanying partition of India mark a tumultuous period in the history of Bengal. Representing both a major front in the Indian struggle against colonial rule, as well as a crucial Allied outpost in the British/American war against Japan, Bengal stood at the crossroads of complex and contentious structural forces - both domestic and international - which, taken together, defined an era of political uncertainty, social turmoil, and collective violence. While for the British the overarching priority was to save the empire from imminent collapse at any cost, for the majority of the Indian population the 1940s were years of acute scarcity, violent dislocation and enduring calamity. In particular there are three major crises that shaped the social, economic and political context of pre-partition Bengal: the Second World War, the Bengal famine of 1943, and the Calcutta riots of 1946.  Hungry Bengal: War, Famine and the End of Empire (Oxford UP, 2015) examines these intr

John joins Lori Allen and Ajantha Subramanian for the roundup episode of the second series of Violent Majorities, focusing on long-distance ethnonationalism. Looking back at their conversations with Peter Beinart on Zionism and Subir Sinha on Hindutva, Lori begins by asking whether Peter underestimates the material entanglements keeping Jewish American support for Israel in place. Ajantha wonders if a space has been opened up by Zionism’s more naked dependence on coercion and brute force. When John expresses puzzlement about the fervent ethnonationalism of minorities within a pluralistic society Lori and Ajantha point out that a sense of minority vulnerability may heighten the allures of long-distance ethnonationalism. The three explore various questions. Does the successful rise of Hindu ethnonationalism in the UK stem from a perceived contrast between benign Hinduism and dangerous Islam? Does the need for popular ratification through electoral democracy limit the scope of long-distance ethnonationalism? Is

How to dwell in a forest alongside giants, avoid disturbing a living god, assist an animal with their manners, and help an elephant cross the road. The Presence of Elephants: Sharing Lives and Landscapes in Assam (Routledge, 2024) is an anthropological consideration of coexistence, grounded in people’s everyday interactions with Asian elephants. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in Assam, Northeast India, this book examines human-elephant copresence and how minds, tasks, identities, and places are shared between the two species. Sharing lives and landscapes with such formidable beings is a continuously shifting and negotiated exchange inherently composed of tensions, asymmetries, and uncertainties – especially in the Anthropocene when breakdowns in communication increasingly have a violent effect. Developing a multifaceted picture of human-elephant relations in a postcolonial setting, each chapter focuses on a different dimension of encounter, where elephants adapt to human norms, people are subj

Can we write women’s authorial roles into the history of industrial cinema in South Asia? How can we understand women’s creative authority and access to the film business infrastructure in this postcolonial region?  In Women’s Transborder Cinema: Authorship, Stardom, and Filmic Labor in South Asia (University of Illinois Press, 2024), Esha Niyogi De draws on rare archival and oral sources to explore these questions from a uniquely comparative perspective, delving into examples of women holding influential positions as stars, directors, and producers across the film industries in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Author Esha Niyogi De is a senior lecturer in the Writings Programs division at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the co-editor of South Asian Filmscapes: Transregional Encounters (2020) and author of Empire, Media, and the Autonomous Woman: A Feminist Critique of Postcolonial Thought (2011). The episode is hosted by Ailin Zhou, PhD student in Film & Digital Media at University of Calif

This special issue of Nidān: International Journal for Indian Studies  is the product of a collective experiment with materials that are assembled, imagined, and agentive in the context of South Asian religions. The articles are available here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies