Durba Ghosh

 

Cornell University

Department of History

450 McGraw Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853

607-254-5092

dg256@cornell.edu

 

 

Education

 

Ph. D., University of California, Berkeley

May 2000

                                                                         

M. A., University of Wisconsin, Madison

May 1994

                                                           

B. A., Wesleyan University

May 1989

           

Academic Appointments

 

  • Cornell University

Department of History, Associate Professor                                          2008-              

Department of History, Assistant Professor                                           2005 - 2008

  • Mount Holyoke College                                                                     2003 - 2005

Department of History, Assistant Professor

  • Wellesley College                                                                               2000 - 2003

Department of Women's Studies, Mellon Post-doctoral Fellow

  • Harvard University                                                                            2000 - 2001

History and Literature Program, Lecturer, British and British Imperial History

  • Amherst College                                                                                1999 - 2000

Department of History, Five College Fellow

  • University of California, Davis                                                         Spring 1999

Department of History, Visiting Lecturer                                               

  • University of California, Berkeley                                                   

Department of History, Teaching Assistant                                            Spring 1998

Department of History, Teaching Assistant                                            Spring 1996  

           

Publications

 

Sex and the Family in Colonial India: the making of empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). [refereed]

Co-editor with Dane Kennedy, Decentring Empire: Britain, India and the Transcolonial World (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2006). [refereed]

“Introduction,” in Decentring Empire: Britain, India and the Transcolonial World, written with Dane Kennedy (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2006).

“Terrorism in Bengal: imperial strategies of political violence and its containment in the interwar years,” in Decentring Empire (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2006).

 

“Exhibiting Asia: Museums, Consumption, and Commerce,” in Narrating the Nation in Public Spaces: Memory, Race, and Empire, edited by Daniel J. Walkowitz and Lisa Knauer (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008).

“Who counts as ‘native?’: gender, race, and subjectivity in colonial India,”  Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 6.3 (2005). [refereed]

“National Narratives and the Politics of Miscegenation: Britain and India” in Archive Stories, edited by Antoinette Burton (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005).

“Gender and Colonialism: expansion or marginalization?” The Historical Journal 47, 3 (September 2004): 737-55.

“Decoding the Nameless: Gender, Subjectivity, and Historical Methodologies in Reading the Archives of Colonial India,” in A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity, Modernity, 1660-1840, edited by Kathleen Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

“Household Crimes and Domestic Order: Keeping the Peace in Colonial Calcutta, c.1770- c.1840,” Modern Asian Studies 38, 3 (July 2004): 598-624. [refereed]

“Making and Un-making Loyal Subjects: Pensioning Widows and Educating Orphans in Early Colonial India,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 31 (January 2003): 1-28. [refereed]

 

Works in Progress

Revolutionaries and Freedom Fighters: nationalism in Bengal in the twentieth century (book project)

Cosmopolitanism and its discontents: the case of British India,” Eighteenth Century Studies (revising for resubmission) 

 

Book reviews

 

Review essay for the Journal of Women’s History of the following titles: Gender History in Practice: historical perspectives on bodies, class, and citizenship, by Kathleen Canning; Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren: the revolutionary Atlantic and the politics of Gender, by Kate Davies; Women and the Historical Enterprise in America: gender, race and the politics of memory, 1880-1945, by Julie des Jardins; British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670-1820, by Devoney Looser; Women’s History in Global Perspective, volumes 1-3, edited by Bonnie G. Smith; Perils of Pankratova: some stories from the annals of Soviet historiography, by Reginald Zelnik. 

 

Book review of Behind the Mask: the cultural definition of the legal subject in colonial Bengal (1715-1911), by Anindita Mukhopadhyay, History  (forthcoming).   

Book review of Specters of Mother India: the global restructuring of an empire, Mrinalini Sinha, Journal of British Studies 46 (2007): 726-28.

Book review of Men, Women, and Domestics: Articulating Middle-Class Identity in Colonial Bengal, by Swapna M. Banerjee, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 34 (2006): 632-33.

Book review of Unfamiliar Relations: family and history in South Asia, edited by Indrani Chatterjee, Journal of Social History 40 (2006):514-15.

Book review of Empire Families: Britons and Late Imperial India, by Elizabeth Buettner, and Counterflows to Colonialism: Indian Travellers and Settlers in Britain, 1600 – 1857, by Michael H. Fisher, Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2007): 109-112.

Book review of Counterflows to Colonialism: Indian Travellers and Settlers in Britain, 1600 – 1857, by Michael H. Fisher, Journal of Imperialism and Commonwealth History 33: 2 (2005): 268-70.

Book review of The Worlds of the East India Company, edited by Nigel Rigby, et al, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 4 (Fall 2003).

Book review of Women Travellers in Colonial India: The Power of the Female Gaze, by Indira Ghose, Journal of Asian Studies 60:1 (February 2001): 264-65. 

Book review of Gender, Slavery and the Law in Colonial India, by Indrani Chatterjee, Journal of Asian Studies 59:2 (May 2000): 459-460.

 

Fellowships and Research Grants

American Philosophical Society, sabbatic fellowship                  Fall 2009

Cambridge University, Clare Hall Visiting Fellowship                 Spring 2009

American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS)                                            2008-2009

Senior Research Fellowship

Fulbright Faculty Research Fellowship (declined)                                   2008-2009

Faculty Research Grant, Cornell University                                            2006-2007

LaFeber Research Grant, Cornell University                                          Summer 2006

Faculty Research Grant, Wellesley College                                2000-2001, 2001-2003

American Historical Association (AHA)

            Bernadotte E. Schmidt Research Grant                                     Summer 1999

American Association of University Women (AAUW)

            Dissertation-writing Fellowship                                      1998-99

UC Chancellor’s Dissertation-writing Fellowship (declined)       1998-99

Francis and Kathleen Rauch Fellowship in History                                 Fall 1997

American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS)                                            1996-97

Junior Research Fellowship      

Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowships (FLAS) (Hindi, Urdu)

                                                                                    1993-94, 1994-95, 1995-96

 

Relevant activities and professional membership

Member, Institute of Social Sciences, Cornell University, Contentious Politics team, 2006-2009

General Book Review Editor, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

Elected member, South Asia Council, 2006-2009, Association of Asian Studies

Editorial Board member, Journal of Women’s History

Editorial Board member, Critical Asian Studies

Editorial Board member, “Empires in Perspective,” series for Pickering & Chatto

Conference Organizer, “How Empire Mattered:  Imperial Structures and Globalization in the Era of British Imperialism,” University of California-Berkeley, April 4-5, 2003.

Member, Program Committee for Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Conference, 2002.

Articles reviewer, Gender and History; Journal of Women's History; Comparative Studies in Society and History; Journal of British Studies; Journal of Asian Studies; Journal of the History of Sexuality

Member of American Historical Association (AHA), Association of Asian Studies (AAS), American Association of University Women (AAUW), and Berkshire Conference of Women Historians.