Ananya Vajpeyi

Ph.D., University of Chicago (2004); M.Phil., University of Oxford (1996); Rhodes Scholar (1994-96)

Areas of Special Interest
Professor Vajpeyi teaches South Asian history, with a focus on caste, violence and non-violence, modernity, as well as nationalism and the state. She also teaches courses on imperialism, colonialism and decolonization in Asia and Africa during the 19th and 20th centuries. In addition, she is interested in intellectual history and the comparative history of ideas in India and Europe.

Contact Information

Office: McCormack 4-626

Phone: 617-287-6877

E-mail: ananya.vajpeyi@umb.edu

Office Hours

Tu & Th by appointment

Representative Publications
BOOK CONTRACT
Righteous Republic: The Political Foundations of Modern India, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA and London, UK.

MONOGRAPHS
Prolegomena to the Study of People and Places in Violent India. Preface by Pratap Bhanu Mehta. WISCOMP, Perspectives #26 (New Delhi: October 2007). New Delhi, India

CHAPTERS IN EDITED VOLUMES
“The Sudra in History: From Scripture to Segregation”. Chapter under preparation for the Festschrift to Sheldon Pollock on his 60th Birthday, edited by Bronner, McCrea and Cox (forthcoming).

“Sudra Dharma and Legal Treatments of Caste”. Chapter under preparation for the Cambridge Handbook Law and Hinduism, edited by Donald Davis and Timothy Lubin (forthcoming Cambridge University Press). Cambridge UK

“ “A History of Caste in India: From Precolonial Polity to Biopolitical State”. Chapter in a volume titled Shared Histories of Modernity: China, India and the Ottoman Empire edited by Huricihan Islamoglu and Peter Carroll. (Routledge India, Critical Asian Studies, Series Editor Veena Das. Jan 2009).   

“Resenting the Indian State: For a New Political Practice in the Northeast”. Chapter in a volume titled Beyond Counter-insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India edited by Sanjib Baruah. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, Jan 2009).

“Excavating Identity through Tradition: Who was Shivaji?” Chapter in Satish Saberwal and Supriya Varma, Eds. Traditions in Motion: Religion in Society and History. Oxford University Press (2005); pp. 240-71.
New Delhi

Contributions to Underfire 2: The Organization and Representation of Violence. Jordan Crandall ed. Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (2005).
Rotterdam, NL

"The Past and its Passions: Writing History in Hard Times". Article in Studies in History 2004, 20: 317-329.

Prior to her appointment at U Mass Boston, between 2002 and 2007, Dr. Vajpeyi has taught at SIPA, Columbia University, and the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. She has held post-doctoral and research fellowships at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC, the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, the Center for Law and Governance at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, UNIFEM / UNDP New York, and the Waag Society for Old and New Media, Amsterdam, NL. She has also been a Scholar of Peace with WISCOMP: Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace, New Delhi, and Opinions Editor of The Indian Express newspaper. She writes regularly for newspapers and magazines in India, the UK, and the US. Her fiction, non-fiction and opinion pieces appear in the New Statesman, Wasafiri, Civil Lines, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, Outlook, Seminar, The Economic and Political Weekly, The Calcutta Telegraph, The Times of India and The National, among other publications.

Course Websites
http://healeylibrary.wikispaces.com/HIST+114+Vajpeyi
http://umb.libguides.com/hist364

Personal Web Link
http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=Ananya+Vajpeyi&=Search&qt=owc_search