Manan Ahmed

Education

2008 Ph.D., South Asian Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.

1997 B.A. with Honors in Hisory, Miami University, Oxford, OH.

1991 B.Sc. in Physics, University of Punjab, Lahore, Pakisan.

Employment History

2020-

• Associate Professor (with Tenure), Department of History, Columbia University, New York, NY.

2018-20

• Associate Professor, Department of History, Columbia University, New York, NY.

2018-19

• Visiting Scholar, Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

2012-2018

• Assistant Professor, Department of History, Columbia University, New York, NY.

2009-2012

• Junior Professor, Institute für Islamwissenschaft, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

Selected Publications

Books

2024

• City Disrupted: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore. New York, NY: The New Press.

2020

• The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Paperback edition, 2023]

2016

• A Book of Conquests: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

2011

• Where the Wild Frontiers Are: Pakistan and the American Imagination. Just World Books.

Journal Special Issues

2022

• Circuits of Culture in Early Modern South Asia
• Editor of special issue in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, 42.2 (2022)
• Author of Introduction

2022

• Sindh: Towards the Philology of a Place
• Editor of special issue in Philological Encounters, Volume 7 (2022): Issue 1-2 (Apr 2022)
• Author of Introduction

2015

• Enchanted Politics: Humans and Other Animals across South Asia and the Middle East
• Co-editor with Anand Vivek Taneja of special issue in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, 35:2 (2015)
• Co-author of Introduction: 200–203 (equal authorship)

2012

• Fractured Genres: The After-Lives of Medieval Indo-Persian Histories
• Co-editor with Anand Vivek Taneja of special issue of Indian Economic and Social History Review, 49:4 (December 2012)
• Co-author of Introduction: 455–457 (equal authorship)

Peer-Reviewed Articles

2021

• “Reading Across Firishta and Chimalpahin”
• Published in History & Theory, 16, 3 (September 2021): 441-447

2019

• “Technologies of Power: From Philology to Big Data”
• Published in Spheres: Journal for Digital Culture (December 2019)

2017

• “Quarantined Histories: Sindh and the Question of Historiography in Colonial India – Part I”
• Published in History Compass, 15, no. 8 (August 2017)
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12403

2017

• “Quarantined Histories: Sindh and the Question of Historiography in Colonial India – Part II”
• Published in History Compass, 15, issue 8 (August 2017)
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12398

2014

• “Idols in the Archive”
• Published in Journal of Asian Studies, 73, no. 1 (February 2014): 1-8

2013

• “A Demon with Ruby Eyes”
• Published in The Medieval History Journal, 16, no. 2 (October 2013):335-369

2012

• “The Long Thirteenth Century of the Chachnama”
• Published in Indian Economic and Social History Review, 49, no. 4 (December 2012):459-491

2011

• “Adam’s Mirror: The Frontier in the Imperial Imagination”
• Published in Economic & Political Weekly, 46, no. 13 (March-April 2011):60-65 [Republished and translated in Ахмед, Манан (2019), “Зеркало Адама: фронтир в имперском воображении,” in Журнал Фронтирных Исследований, (1), 83-101.]

Chapters in Peer-Reviewed Volumes

2020

• “The Virulence of Hindutva”
• Published in The Pandemic: Perspectives on Asia, edited by Vinayak Chaturvedi (Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 2020):153-167

2020

• “Narratives of Early Hindu-Muslim Encounters”
• Published in The Oxford Handbook of the Mughal World, edited by Richard M. Eaton and Ramya Sreenivasan

2015

• “The Advent and Spread of Muslim Rule in South Asia”
• Published in History of Pakistan, edited by Roger D. Long (Lahore: Oxford University Press, 2015):135-167

2013

• “Future’s Past”
• Published in South Asia 2060: Envisioning Regional Futures, edited by Adil Najam and Moeed Yusuf (London: Anthem Press, 2013):46-52

Book Reviews

2020

• “India in the Persianate Age 1000-1765” by Richard M. Eaton
• Published in The American Historical Review, 126, no. 1 (March 2021):94–295

2018

• “The Quotidian Revolution: Vernacularization, Religion, and the Premodern Public Sphere in India” by Christian Lee Novetzke
• Published in The American Historical Review, 123, no. 1 (February 2018):201–202

2017

• “Conquests and Community: The Afterlife of Warrior Saint Ghazi Miyan” by Shahid Amin
• Published in The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 54, no. 2 (2017):267-295

2017

• “A Short History of the Mughal Empire” by Michael Fisher
• Published in The Journal of Asian Studies, 76, no. 2 (May 2017):553–555

2015

• “Islam Translated: Literature, Conversion, and the Arabic Cosmopolis of South and Southeast Asia” by Ronit Ricci
• Published in The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 52, no. 1 (2015):109–119

2010

• “Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval ‘Hindu-Muslim’ Encounter” by Finbarr Flood
• Published in The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 48, no. 2 (April 2011):301-305

2009

• “British Relations with Sind, 1799-1843: An Anatomy of Imperialism” by Robert A. Huttenback
• Reviewed in H-Asia, H-Net Reviews (December, 2009)

2004-

• Author, “Chapati Mystery - a South Asia history and culture publication”
• Website: Chapati Mystery

Selected Grants

2021

• “Revealing the Archives of the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center”
• Co-recipient: Susan McGregor
• Funding: $1,500 from Data Science Institute.

2021-2024

• “Muslims in India”
• Collaborators: Christophe Jaffrelot (Science Po), Bernard Haykel (Princeton)
• Funding: $300,000 from Henry Luce Foundation.

2020

• “Worlds at Wase: Air, Water, Land, and the Public in Asia and Africa”
• Collaborator: Kavita Sivaramakrishnan (History and Public Health)
• Funding: $20,000 from Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy.

2019-2024

• “Decolonization, the Disciplines, and the University”
• Collaborators: Mahmood Mamdani (Columbia), Rosinka Chaudhuri (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Kolkata), Dzodzi Tsikata (University of Ghana), Samer Frangie (CAMES, American University of Beirut)
• Funding: $1,500,000 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

2019-2020

• “The Humanities in the Wake of War? Technologies of Power, Displaced Histories and Reconstruction”
• Collaborators: Hiba Bou Akar (Architecture), Zainab Bahrani (Art History), Kaoukab Chebaro (Columbia Libraries), Marwa Elshakry (History), Hanaa Mallalah (Iraq), Brinkley Messick (Anthropology & MESAAS), Madiha Tahir (Journalism), Adrien Zakar (Stanford Humanities Center)
• Funding: $60,000 from Columbia University Humanities War and Peace Initiative.

2019

• “CSMS Lecture Series”
• Collaborators: Brinkley Messick (Anthropology) and Marwa Elshakry (History)
• Funding: $10,000 from the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy.

2018

• “Orientalism and Its Others”
• Collaborator: Marwa Elshakry
• Funding: $80,000 from the President’s Global Fund Grant.

2018

• “Muslim Worlds Manuscript Project”
• Collaborators: RBML Columbia, Free Museum Philadelphia, and University of Pennsylvania Libraries
• Funding: $500,000 from CLIR Mellon Hidden Collections Grant.

2017

• “Data Ethics”
• Collaborators: Bruce Kogut (Business) and Josh Whitford (Sociology)
• Funding: $40,000 from the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy.

2017

• “Connected Core: Pilot for Cross-Section Online Collaboration in Core Classes”
• Collaborator: Dennis Tenen (English)
• Funding: $30,500 from Columbia College.

2017

• “Indo-Ghuria: Workshop for International Workshop on 12th and 13th c. South and Central Asia”
• Funding: $9,000 from Columbia Faculty of Arts & Sciences.

2016

• “A History of Difference”
• Collaborator: Katharina Ivanyi (Religion)
• Funding: $20,000 from Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life.

2015-17

• “Colonization and De-Colonization”
• Collaborators: Mae Ngai (History) and Claudio Lomnitz (Anthropology)
• Funding: $50,000 from President’s Global Fund Grant.

2015

• “Digital Music”
• Collaborator: Dennis Tenen (English)
• Funding: $20,000 from President’s Global Fund Grant.

2015

• “Borderlands: GIS Lab for a Hybrid Learning Platform for Graduate Level Seminar on GIS”
• Funding: $10,000 from Provost’s Hybrid Learning Technology Grant.

2010-15

• “Zukunftsphilologie”
• Collaborators: Islam Dayeh and Georges Khalil
• Funding: €1,300,000 from City of Berlin.

2011-12

• “e-basis Islamwissenschaft”
• Funding: €50,000 from CeDiS, FU-Berlin.

2010

• “Delhi Historical Map Project”
• Funding: €10,000 from Dahlem Research Forum, FU-Berlin.

Fellowships

2018-19

• Visiting Scholar
• Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University.

2016-17

• Heyman Center Fellow
• Faculty Fellowship at the Heyman Center, Columbia University.

2014

• Op-Ed Project Public Voices Fellow
• Columbia University.

2006

• Dissertation Write-up
• Norman Wait Harris Fund for International Studies, University of Chicago.

Presentations & Lecures

Invited Lectures & Keynotes

2022

• “Firishta’s Hindustan”
• Host: Ahmadabad University

2022

• “Loss of Hindustan”
• Host: SRM University, Andhra Pradesh

2022

• “Loss of Hindustan”
• Host: Ashoka University

2022

• “Loss of Hindustan”
• Host: American University, Cairo

2021

• “Decolonization and History: A Look back at Hindustan”
• Host: Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan in Kazan

2021

• “The Loss of Hindustan”
• Host: Presidency College Kolkata

2021

• “The Loss of Hindustan”
• Host: University of Toronto

2021

• “The Loss of Hindustan”
• Host: University of Chicago

2021

• “Intellectual Geography of Hindustan”
• Host: Yale Macmillan Center, Yale University

2021

• “Decolonizing Storytelling”
• Host: Lucas Films, Ltd.

2021

• “A Book of Conquests”
• Host: Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad

2021

• “History After Destruction”
• Keynote for “Inqilab: Revolution, Rebellion, and Realignments in Eighteenth Century South Asia,” Princeton University

2021

• “A Contrapuntal History of Hindustan”
• Host: Seminar on Modern South Asia, University of Oxford

2021

• “The Loss of Hindustan”
• Host: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh

2020

• “The Loss of Hindustan”
• Host: UC Santa Cruz

2020

• “The Loss of Hindustan”
• Host: St. Stephen’s College, Delhi

2020

• “The Loss of Hindustan”
• Host: Jamia Millia University, Delhi

2019

• “A Book of Conquests”
• Host: University of Chicago

2019

• “Firishta and the History of Hindustan”
• Host: Harvard University

2018

• “What, Where, and When was Hindustan?”
• Host: Stanford University

2018

• “From Philology to Algorithm and the Study of Asia”
• Host: Dartmouth College

2018

• “A Book of Conquests”
• Host: University of Pennsylvania

2017

• “Did Firishta have a Philosophy of History?”
• Host: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Yale

2017

• “A Book of Conquests”
• Host: South Asia Institute, UT-Austin

2017

• “A Book of Conquests”
• Host: Contemporary South Asia Seminar, Brown University

2016

• “Quarantined Histories”
• Host: Boston College

2016

• “A Long History for a Prophetic Pakistan”
• Host: South Asia Program, Cornell University

2016

• “On the Last Hindu Emperor”
• Host: South Asia Institute, University of Texas at Austin

2016

• “Technologies of Power: The History and Future of Area Studies in the United States”
• Host: University of Chicago

2015

• “Prophetic Pakistan”
• Host: PIIRS, Princeton University

2015

• “Local, Regional, and Universal History, Now or Then”
• Host: Center for South Asian Studies, University of Michigan

2014

• “Dialectical Images in Chachnama: Trees, Walls, and Ruby Eyes in Medieval Sindh”
• Host: Center for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies, Tufts University

2014

• “Entombed Voices: Female Authority and Immurement in the Chachnama”
• Host: Brown Bag Lunch Series, Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University

2014

• “Against Drone Space: Reading Testimony from Waziristan”
• Host: Sarah Lawrence College

2014

• “Empire and Media Workshop”
• Host: New York University

2014

• “Prophetic Pakistan”
• Host: Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, Amherst College

2013

• “Considered Difference in Medieval Sindh”
• Host: Department of History, Penn State University

2013

• “Self-Publishing Prophecies: Apocalypse and Media from Shah Waliullah to Zaid Hamid”
• Host: Center for South Asian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

2012

• “Shah Waliullah to Zaid Hamid: A Longer View on Prophecy and Dreams in South Asia”
• Host: Lahore University of Management & Sciences, Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Pakistan

2011

• “Prophecy, Apocalypse, and the Selling of the Pakistani Dream, 1947-2009”
• Host: Department of History, Rice University

2011

• “Zehn Jahre 9/11”
• Host: Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin

2010

• “Rethinking the History of Pakistan”
• Host: Wellesley College, Department of History

2010

• “False Prophets: Spend an Evening with Zahid Hamid”
• Host: Nationhood and Nation-building in South Asia, Stanford University

2010

• “Reading Tea Leaves in Pakistan”
• Host: HIMUN, Universität Hildesheim

2008

• “Database Design for Non-Profits”
• Host: Lecture and demonstration at South Side Arts & Humanities Network

2007

• “Hacking Historical Maps: Towards a Digital South Asia”
• Host: Planned and organized a workshop to assess and gather means of combining web technologies (GIS, geo-tagging) to build a data-bank for South Asian

Panel Presentations

2020

• “Decolonizing Indian History”
• Event: Jaipur Literary Festival

2020

• “South Asia from Afar”
• Event: Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, Oxford University

2020

• “The Postcolonized Historian and the Global South: Reflections on South Asia and Latin America”
• Chair: Camilla D. Townsend
• Event: The AHA 134th Annual Meeting, New York

2019

• “A Roundtable Discussion of Cynthia Talbot’s The Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Chauhan and the Indian Past, 1200-2000”
• Chair: Purnima Dhavan
• Event: The AAS Annual Meeting, Denver, CO

2018

• “Identity and Belonging in Premodern Imperial Discourses: A Roundtable”
• Chair: David A. M. Spafford
• Event: The AHA 132nd Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.

2016

• “Qabacha’s Legacy: From Medieval to Longue Durée: Continuities and Ruptures in 12th-13th Century South and Central Asia”
• Chair: Alka Patel
• Event: 50th Annual Meeting, Middle East Studies Association, Boston, MA

2015

• “Not Being Governed: Surveillance, Policing, and Resistance in Mughal Sindh”
• Chair: Cynthia Talbot
• Event: 44th Annual South Asia Conference, Madison, WI

2014

• “Digital History for Medieval South Asia”
• Event: Textual Corpora and the Digital Islamic Humanities, Brown University

2013

• “Stones Fed with Blood: Female Immurement and Kingly Authority in Late Medieval India”
• Chair: Manan Ahmed
• Event: The Spaces of Violence: Gender and the City in South Asia, 42nd Annual South Asia Conference, Madison, WI

2012

• “A Death Foretold: Dreams and Romance in the Chachnama”
• Chair: Manan Ahmed
• Event: On Dreams and Other Truths in Medieval Central and South Asia, 41st Annual South Asia Conference, Madison, WI

2011

• “A Note on Some Medieval Representations of Muslim Capital in South Asia”
• Chair: Margrit Pernau
• Event: 40th Annual South Asia Conference

2010

• “The Political Languages in the Frontier of Sindh, 1220 CE”
• Event: Textual Practices Beyond Europe 1500-1900, Cairo

2010

• “The Long Thirteenth Century of the Chachnama”
• Chair: A. Sean Pue
• Event: 39th Annual South Asia Conference, Madison, WI

2010

• “Navigating Self and State in Communal Histories in Pakistan”
• Chair: Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar
• Event: Annual Association of Asian Studies Meeting 2010, Philadelphia, PA

2008

• “Encounters between Early Modern Sanskrit and Persian Cultures: Ethical and Political Text”
• Event: Workshop chaired by Manan Ahmed, Seventh Biennial Conference on Iranian Studies, Toronto, ON

2008

• “The End of Muhammad bin Qasim: Memory, History, and the Postcolonial Urge to Forget”
• Chair: Manan Ahmed
• Event: 122nd Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, Washington, D.C.

2006

• “From Diwan to Database: Digital Archives of South Asia”
• Chair: A. Sean Pue
• Event: 35th Annual South Asia Conference, Madison, WI

2006

• “Knowledge Brokers of the Empire in Sindh”
• Event: Workshop, Beyond Deconstruction - Engaging Colonial Knowledge at King’s College, Cambridge, UK

2006

• “An Imperial Moment: Seth Noamul Hotchand and the Annexation of Sindh”
• Chair: Prachi Deshpande
• Event: 21st Annual South Asia Conference at the University of California, Berkeley, CA

2005

• “Interplay of History and Literature in Indo-Persian Texts”
• Chair: Sunil Sharma
• Event: 215th Annual Meeting of the American Oriental Society, Philadelphia, PA

2005

• “Imagined Sindh: Orientalism, Nationalism, and Post-Nationalist Constructions of Sindhi Nation”
• Chair: Ronald B. Inden
• Event: 20th Annual South Asia Conference at UCLA, Berkeley, CA

2004

• “Law and Order in Mughal Sindh”
• Chair: Munis Faruqui
• Event: 33rd Annual South Asia Conference at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI

2004

• “Death of Muhammad b. Qasim in History and Memory”
• Chair: Muzaffar Alam
• Event: 19th Annual South Asia Conference at the University of California, Berkeley, CA

Teaching Experience

Classes Taught

2020

• Course: “Islam and the Modern World: Critical Texts and Practices in the Study of Muslim Societies”
• Level: Undergraduate Seminar

2012-2020

• Course: “Introduction to Contemporary Western Civilization”
• Level: Undergraduate Seminar for the Columbia College Core

2012-2019

• Course: “History of South Asia I: From al-Hind to Hindustan”
• Level: Undergraduate Lecture Survey

2014-2019

• Course: “The Worlds of Mughal India”
• Level: Undergraduate Seminar Course

2018

• Course: “Early Modern South Asia: Agent, Subject, Object”
• Level: Graduate Seminar

2017

• Course: “Colonization and Decolonization”
• Level: Undergraduate Seminar (Co-taught with Claudio Lomnitz, Anthropology, in Mexico City)

2015-2019

• Course: “Borderlands”
• Level: Graduate Seminar with a Historical G.I.S. Lab component (Co-taught with Karl Jacoby in Fall 2017)

2015

• Course: “History in Action”
• Level: Graduate Seminar (Co-taught with Pamela Smith, History)

2012-2014

• Course: “Walking & Colonialism: 17th to the 19th century”
• Level: Undergraduate Seminar

2013-2014

• Course: “Masterpieces of European Literature & Philosophy”
• Level: Undergraduate Seminar for the Columbia College Core

Thesis Supervision

Ph.D. Sponsor

• Tania Bhattacharyya, PhD received 2019 (Harvard Society of Fellows, 2019-2022)
• Rahul Sarwate, PhD received 2020 (Assistant Professor, Ahmedabad University)
• Sayantani Mukherjee, PhD received 2021 (Assistant Professor, Ashoka University)
• Laura Yan, G07
• Joslyn DeVinney, G07

Ph.D. Committee Member, Columbia or at other Institutions

• Samyak Ghosh (MESAAS, Columbia), “Formations of the King: Politics, Pleasure, and Law in Contact Zones of Early Eighteenth-Century Brahmaputra Valley, 1700-1750” (2022)
• Aaron Mandon-Plasek (History, Columbia), “Genealogies of Machine Learning, 1950-1995” (2022)
• Angela Giordani (History, Columbia), “Making Falsafa in Modern Egypt: Towards a History of Islamic Philosophy in the Twentieth Century” (2020)
• Esmat Elhalaby (History, Rice University), “The Arab Rediscovery of India.” (2019, current Assistant Professor at University of Toronto)
• Fatima Quraishi (Art History, New York University), “Necropolis as Palimpsest: the Cemetery of Makli in Sindh, Pakistan.” (2019, current Assistant Professor at UC Riverside)
• Shayan Rajani (History, Tufts University), “Reimagining the World, Remaking the Region: Distinction and Difference in Early Modern and Modern Sindh.” (2018, current Assistant Professor at LUMS Lahore)
• Sonia Ahsan (Anthropology), “States of Honor: Sexual Ethics and the Politics of Promiscuity in Afghanistan.” (2015)
• Anand V. Taneja (Anthropology), “The Sacred as History: Presencing the Past in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi.” (2013, current Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt)

M.A. M.Phil Supervision

• Mahum Qazi (2022)
• Safia Mahmood (2022)
• Sayeed Chowdhury (2022)
• Mahum Qazi (2022)
• Xintong Chen (2022)
• Sofia Shehana Basheer (2021)
• Anna Misra (2021)
• Wanjiku Elizabeth Karanja (2019)
• Tobias Peser (2017)
• Anisha Padma (2017)
• Heba Islam (Anthropology) (2016)
• Nadia Misir (American Studies) (2016)
• Selim Karlitekin (MESAAS) (2014)

B.A. Senior Thesis First/Second Reader

• Liza Chowdhury, ’19 (Thesis won the Taraknath Das Prize for Undergraduate Excellence in South Asian Studies)
• Tara Chand Lal, ’17
• Jingwei Xu, ’16 (Thesis won the Taraknath Das Prize for Undergraduate Excellence in South Asian Studies)
• Sundas Amer ’15
• David Abud ’14
• Priom Ahmed ’14 (Thesis won the Taraknath Das Prize for Undergraduate Excellence in South Asian Studies)
• Lewis Wes ’13 (Thesis won the Taraknath Das Prize for Undergraduate Excellence in South Asian Studies)
• Sameaa Butt ’13 —>

Affiliations & Service

Departmental & University Service

I serve on the Executive Commmittees (or Boards) of: Committee on Global Thought, Center for Race and Ethnicity, Center for Spatial Research, SOF/Heyman Center, South Asia Institute.

Other service obligations are listed below:

2023-2024

• Chair, Search Committee for South Asia, Member, Search Committee for LatinX
• History Summer Institute 2022-2023
• Publishing Committee, Columbia University Press 2021-2022
• History Summer Institute
• Publishing Committee, Columbia University Press 2020-2021
• Director Graduate Studies, Department of History
• Publishing Committee, Columbia University Press 2019-2020
• Director Graduate Studies
• Publishing Committee, Columbia University Press

2018-2019

• Summer Curriculum Co-ordinator, EPPC
• Director of Center for International History

2017-2018

• Graduate Admissions Committee, Summer Curriculum Co-ordinator, EPPC, , DSI Center - Data, Media and Society Committee
• International Travel Fellowship Selection Committee
• Director of Center for International History 2016-2017
• Bulliet Chair Search Committee, Ottoman History Search Committee
• Graduate Admissions Committee, Summer Curriculum Co-ordinator
• Columbia Secondary School Project, EPPC, Center for Spatial Research Executive

2015-2016

• Board, Member DSI Center Data, Media and Society Committee
• Director of Center for International History
  2014-2015
• Junior Faculty Advisory Board
• Director of Center for International History 2013-2014
• History in Action, Society of Fellows Reading Committee, Junior Faculty
• Advisory Board, Director of Center for International History. 2012-2013
• Spending Priority Committee, Graduate Admissions Committee
• Spending Priority Committee, Graduate Admissions Committee

Service to the Discipline

I serve on the Editorial Boards for Journals Philological Encounters (Brill), Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (Duke) and ‘Usur al Wusta’ (Columbia) and the Board of Trustees for Asian American Writers Workshop and South Asian Avant-Garde.

2021-2024

• Executive Editor, Journal of the History of Ideas\

2019-2025

• Senior Editor for South Asia, Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East\

2019-2024

• South Asia Council, Association of Asian Studies

2016-2019

• Associate Editor for South Asia, Journal of Asian Studies, Cambridge University Press.

2016-2019

• Member, Review Panel, Council on Library and Information Resources.

2012-2022

• Member, Board of Trustees, American Institute of Pakistan Studies.
• Manuscript reviewer Hurst Publications, Oxford University Press, Yale University Press, Cambridge University Press, IB Tauris, Journal for Asian Studies.

Organized Conferences & Workshops

2024

• New Mughal Historiography. Co-organized with Jane Mikkelson. Yale University.

2023

• Nations in Fragments: Conference in Honor of Partha Chatterjee. Co-organized with Karuna Mantena, David Scott. Columbia University.

2023

• Worlds at Waste: The Crisis of Water in the Subcontinent. Co-organized with Kavita Sivaramakrishnan. Columbia University.

2018

• IndoGhuria: Continuities and Ruptures in 12th and 13th c. South and Central Asia. Columbia University.\

2017

• A History of Difference: Piety and Space in Early Modern West Asia. Co-organized with Kathi Ivanyi (Religion), Columbia University.\

2017

• Rediscovering Words and Worlds: Arabic Script Collections at Columbia. Co-organized with Zeinab Azarbadegan, Sadegh Ansari, and Mahmood Gharavi, Columbia University Libraries

2015

• South-South: Intellectual History Across Middle East and South Asia, 1857-1948. Co-organized with Roy Bar Zadeh and Esmat Elhalaby, Columbia University.

2011

• Winter School Cairo: Textual Practices Beyond Europe 1500-1900. Co-organized with Islam Dayeh, Georges Khalil, American University Cairo.

2006

• Hacking Historical Maps: Towards a Digital South Asia. University of Chicago.

2006

• One Hundred Years of All India Muslim League. University of Chicago.

2005

• Scared Cows: Traversing History and Religion in South Asia. University of Chicago.

Scholarly Public Outreach

Op-Eds

2017

• “Half a Cheer for Democracy in Pakistan,” The New York Times, March 20, 2017. 2013
• “Pakistan’s Tyrannical Majority,” The New York Times, May 10, 2013. 2013
• “A Stranger on Lenox Avenue,” The New York Times, September 27, 2013.

Essays

2018

• “The early champions of anti-Ahmadi cause,”The Herald, Pakistan, October 2018. 2017
• “Freeing History: How to counter colonial myths about Muslim arrival in Sindh,” The Herald, Pakistan, August 2017. 2015
• “Between the Lines: Excavating the many histories of Partition,” The Caravan, India, June 2015. 2015
• “A Matriarch in Exile,” Public Books. 2013
• “the state shall remain nameless," The State, vol 4 (March 2013): 1-5.

Languages

• Urdu-Hindi: ILR Level 5 (Functionally Native Proficiency)
• English: ILR Level 5 (Functionally Native Proficiency)
• Persian: ILR Level 4+ (Advanced Professional Proficiency)
• Arabic: ILR Level 3+ (General Professional Proficiency)
• Punjabi: ILR Level 3+
• German: ILR Level 3+
• French: ILR Level 3+
• Sindhi: ILR Level 3+
• Spanish: ILR Level 2+
• Portuguese: ILR Level 2+ proficiency rated using the Interagency Language Roundtable Scale (ILR)

Affiliations

Member: American Historical Society, Association of Asian Studies.