Dr. Pankaj Jha

Books:

  • 2019: A Political History of Literature: Vidyapati and the Fifteenth Century, Delhi: Oxford University Press (ISBN: 978-0-19-948955-8)
  • 2019: Servants’ Pasts: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century South Asia, vol. 1 (co-edited with Nitin Sinha & Nitin Varma), New Delhi: Orient Blackswan. (ISBN: 978-93-5287-664-8)
  • 2024: (under preparation) Vidyapati’s Likhānavalī: A Writing Manual by Vidyapati, translated from Sanskrit into English.

Journal Special Issue:

  • 2022: Domestic Servants in North India: Analysing Courtly, Literary and Everyday Practices (Co-edited with Nitin Sinha), special issue of the journal, South Asian History and Culture, Vol. 13, No. 4., ISSN: 1947-2501

Research Papers in Peer Reviewed Journals:

  • 2023, Pankaj Jha, ‘Region, Politics and Literary Culture: Reflections from Mithila in the Long 15th Century’, South Asian Studies, Vol. 39, Issue 2 (2023). ISSN: 0266-6030.
  • 2022 ‘Tracing Historical Forms of Servitude: Introductory Remarks and Elementary Reflections’ (co-authored with Nitin Sinha) South Asian History and Culture, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 433-444. ISSN: 1947-2501
  • 2022 ‘Gender Identities in Popular Hindi Films: From the 70s to the 90s’ (co-authored with Sneh Jha) Juni Khyat, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 95-109. ISSN: 2278-4632
  • 2021 ‘राजस्थानी व अन्य भारतीय साहित्य और आरंभिक आधुनिकता की कुछ झलकियाँ’, Rajasthan History Congress Proceedings, vol. XXXV, pp. 830-835. ISSN: 2321-1288
  • 2021 ‘साहित्य का सत्य बनाम इतिहास का तथ्य’, Jūnī Khyāt, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 222-232. ISSN: 2278-4632
  • 2021 ‘Whose History is it Anyway?’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 56, No. 28, pp. 23-26. (Co-authored with Kumkum Roy). ISSN: 0012-9976
  • 2019: ‘Sattā, sāhitya aur itihāsa: madhyakālīn pariprekshya me’, Ālochanā, no. 62 (Oct-Dec, 2019) ISSN: 2231-6329
  • 2019: ‘Mithila, Hindi va madhyakālīn bharat ke itihās me Vidyāpati’, Bayā, October-December (2019), pp. 6-17. ISSN: 2321-9858
  • 2016: “Literary Conduits for ‘Consent’: Cultural Groundwork of the Mughal State in the Fifteenth Century”, The Medieval History Journal, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 322-50. ISSN: 09719458
  • 2016: ‘Vidyapati: Itihāsakāroṃ kī Pratīkṣā me’, Pratimān, vol. 6, July-December, 2016, pp. 220-39. ISSN: 2320-8201
  • 2014: “Beyond the local and the universal: Exclusionary strategies of expansive literary cultures in fifteenth century Mithila”, Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 51 (1), pp. 1-40. ISSN: 0019-4646
  • 2013: “Knowledge and History at an Inconvenient Juncture”, Medieval History Journal, vol. 16 (1), pp. 221-32. ISSN: 09719458

Chapters in Edited Books:

  • 2022: ‘Preparing for the Mughal State: A View from the Textual Worlds of the Fifteenth Century’, in The Routledge Handbook of State in Premodern India, edited by Hermann Kulke and Bhairabi Prasad Sahu, Oxon and New York: Routledge, pp. 439-457.,ISBN: 978-1-032-33225-3
  • 2022 ‘Unit 2: Sanskrit Kāvya Literature, Regional Sources and Travelogues’, IGNOU Reading Materials, BHIC-112 (History of India-VII, c. 1605-1750), pp. 23-40. ISBN: 978-93-5568-251-2
  • 2019: ‘Securing the Naukar: Caste and Domestics in the Fifteenth Century Mithila’, in Servants’ Pasts: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century South Asia, vol. 1, edited by Nitin Sinha, Nitin Varma and Pankaj Jha, pp. 133-52. ISBN: 978-93-5287-664-8
  • 2019: ‘Introduction’, to Servants’ Pasts: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century South Asia, vol. 1, co-authored with Nitin Sinha and Nitin Varma, pp. 1-88. ISBN: 978-93-5287-664-8
  • 2013: “Gender, Varṇa and Vidyapati”, NMML Occasional Paper, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, History and Society: New Series (32), pp. 1-34. ISSN: 81-87614-90-0
  • 2008: “A Table Laden with Good Things: Reading a 14th Century Sufi Text”, Abhijit Gupta & Swapan Chakrovorty, eds, Moveable Type: Book History in India, Ranikhet: Permanent Black, pp. 3-25. ISBN: 81-7824-217-6
  • 2006: “Itihās Darshan (Philosophy of History)” in Shyam Singh Shashi, ed., Sāmājik Vijñān ka Hindi Vishvakoṣ (Encyclopaedia of Social Science in Hindi), ed., Shyam Singh ‘Shashi’, Delhi: Suryaprabha Prakashan, pp. 43-47. ISBN: 978-938014-6713
  • 2005: “Caste and Society”, “Religion”, and [the medieval section of the] “Timechart”. ed. xxxx, The Timechart History of India, Bath: Robert Frederick. ISBN: 0755451627
  • 2004: “Maneri’s Malfuz: Writing Orality and Devising ‘Public’ Space in a 14th Century Muslim Settlement of Bihar”, in M.D.Muthukumaraswamy & Molly Kaushal, eds, Folklore, Public Sphere and Civil Society, New Delhi: IGNCA & NFSC, pp. 92-102. ISBN: 8190148141

Translation:

  • 2007: “Peasants, Landlords and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire” from English to Hindi, ‘Kisan Zamindar aur Rajya: Krishi Samaj aur Mughal Samrajya” for Class XII History Textbook, Themes in Indian History (Bharatiya Itihas ke Kuchh Vishaya), Part II, Delhi: NCERT, pp. 196-223. [ISBN: 81-7450-759-0]

Select Book Reviews:

  • 2018: ‘Vernacular languages as vehicles of literary expression’, The Book Review, vol. XLII, no. 12. ISSN: 0970-4175
  • 2018: ‘Siddhanton ka apaghāt’, (Review of Sudhish Pachauri, Sexuality ka Samaroh, delhi: vani prakashan, 2017), Hans, (July issue, 2018). ISSN: 2454-4450
  • 2018: ‘Mobility, Martiality and Memory of the Thar’, A Review of Tanjua Kothiyal, Nomadic Narratives: A History of Mobility and Identity in the Great Indian Desert, Delhi: Cambridge University Press. Published in Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 53, no. 5. ISSN: 0012-9976
  • 2012: ‘Rīti Sāhitya aur Sāṃskṛtik Patan kā Mithak’, (a review in Hindi of) Allison Busch, Poetry of Kings: The Classical Hindi Literature of Mughal India, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), in Nayapath, July-December, pp. 137-40.
  • 2005: Muzaffar Alam, The Languages of Political Islam in India, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003, in Biblio, New Delhi, vol. X, nos. 5 & 6.
  • 2001: Irfan Habib, ed., Confronting Colonialism: Resistance and Modernisation under Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan, in Indian Review of Books, Vol. 10.
  • 2001: D.N.Jha, ed., The Feudal Order: State, Society and Ideology in Early Medieval India, in The Book Review, Vol. XXV, No. 4. ISSN: 0970-4175
  • 2000: Irfan Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India 1556 – 1707, in Indian Review of Books, Vol. 9, No. 10.

Select Papers/Lectures presented at Seminars and Conferences:

    • ⁠2024: Presented a paper on ‘Talking across Literary Cultures: Historians caught in a Philological Conundrum’ in an international conference on the theme “Translations/ Transitions: Sultanate to Mughal 16th Century” at School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, on 7 April
    • ⁠2024: Gave a lecture on ‘History of Languages and Multilingualism in Medieval India’ at Ramjas College organised by the Department of History, Ramjas College on 5 March
    • 2023: Gave a presentation on ‘Decoding Pleasure: Aesthetic Sensibilities and Social Traditions’ at the Annual History Fest of Gargi College, organised by the Department of History on 31 March.
    • 2023: Part of an Expert Panel in a Colloquium on ‘Education and Exclusion: Knowledge and Pedagogical Practices’, organized by the Department of History, St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi on 21 March.
    • 2022: Participated as an expert in a Graduate Student Colloquium on Historical Methods organised by the Department of History & Archaeology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shiv Nadar Institute of Eminence and Deemed to be University on 18-19 October.
    • 2022: Delivered an invited lecture on “History of Languages and Languages of History in ‘Medieval’ north India” by the Department of History at Ashoka University, Sonepat (Haryana) on 16 November, 2022.
    • 2022: Resource Person at a Roundtable Discussion on ‘Teaching History in India@75’ in the 4th Inter-University Historians’ Colloquium by Jindal Global University at India International Centre, New Delhi on 9-10 September.
    • 2022: Resource Person in a Workshop on ‘A Social History of Time in South Asia’, by Leibniz Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin during 18-22 July.
    • 2022: Presented a paper entitled “What Consists in a Region? Notes from early modern north Indian literatures’ at a Conference on Courts of North India and the Deccan, by University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia on 15-16 April.
    • 2021: Participated as a panellist in a discussion on The Loss of Hindustan by Manan Ahmad Asif organised by Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) on 24 September, 2021।.
    • 2021: Gave an invited lecture on ‘Texts, Sources and Modern Historiographies of Medieval India’ organised by Janki Devi Memorial College as part of the series on The Historian’s Craft on 16 March.
    • 2019: Participated as a resource person at a panel discussion on Padmaavat organised by the English Literary Society, Miranda House (University of Delhi) on 6 February.
    • 2020: At an International Workshop on Literature, Narratives, History organized by the Department of History, University of Delhi on 26 February. Presented paper entitled ‘Locating Texts within Multilingual Contexts: Literature as a Field of Politics’.
    • 2019: National Seminar on Kabir and Bhakti Movement, organized by ARSD College, Delhi on 19 September.
      Lecture on ‘Becoming Kabir: History, Politics and the Emancipatory Idiom of Bondage in the Fifteenth Century’.
    • 2019: at ZMO, Berlin on 5 July, 2019 Presented paper entitled “The Literary World of a Medieval ‘Muslim’: Culture, Politics and Historiography of Medieval India”.
    • 2018 : Conference on Command and Consent, organized by Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universaitat, at the Bonn University, Bonn, Germany, 7-11 November.
      Presented paper entitled: ‘Consent and Conflict as Constitutive Elements of Power in Fifteenth Century North India’
    • 2018: 2nd International Conference on Servants’ Pasts, organized by Leibniz-ZMO, Berlin and Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, 11-13 April 2018.
      Presented paper entitled “Problems and Promises of writing servants’ pasts in premodern South Asia”.
    • 2018: National Conference on Debating the Early Modern in South Asian History, organized by Ashoka University, Sonipat, 9-10 Febrary 2018.
      Presented paper entitled ‘North Indian Early Modernity as a Porous Time Frame: Language, Literature and History in the Irregular Fifteenth Century’.
    • 2017: National Conference on Crossing Boundaries, organized by the Department of History, University of Delhi, 27-28 February
      Presented paper entitled: ‘Society before State: Language, Literature and Power in (Pre-)Mughal Times’.
    • 2017: Workshop on Time Frames: Questioning Chronologies in South Asia’s Pasts, organized by Shiv Nadar University, Gautam Buddha Nagar, U.P., 24-25 February.

Presented paper entitled ‘Beyond Universal Keys and Unmoving Chronologies: fifteenth century and other missing links in “Indian” history’.

  • 2017: International Conference on Servants’ Pasts at CSDS Delhi organized by European Research Council, 16-18 February
    Chaired a Session titled ‘Mughal Households’.
  • 2017: The Student Workshop for Research Paper Writing at LSR College for Women, Delhi, 10-21 January.
    Lecture titled ‘Choosing a Topic and Framing Research Questions’
  • 2016: The 22nd Refresher Course in History, organized by The UGC Human Resource Development Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, 24 August

 

Presented paper entitled ‘Languages and Literatures in Medieval India’:

  • 2016: The European Conference for South Asian Studies in Warsaw, 27 July – 30 July.
    Presented paper entitled ‘Securing the Naukar: Caste, Gender and the ‘Domestic’ in the Fifteenth Century Mithila’.
  • 2016: The International Summer School for Graduate Students, New Delhi organized by Centre for Escalation of Peace, 14 July.
    Presented paper entitled: ‘The Language Question: A History of Purity and Infidelity in Medieval India’.
  • 2015: The Seminar on Literary Cultures and History in South Asia, Jamia Millia Islamia University, 11-12 March.
    Presented paper entitled ‘Literary Cultures in Sanskrit, Persian and Vernacular Compositions in Fifteenth Century North India’.
  • 2014: The Workshop on Command to Consent: the Structure and Representation of Power in the Late-Medieval Eurasian World, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 5 November.
    Presented paper entitled ‘Gathering Idioms of Authority in the Liminal Time-Space: A View from Fifteenth Century Mithila’.
  • 2013: The History Society, Jamshedpur Women’s College, Ranchi University, 18 April.
    Talk on: ‘History, Literature, and Post-modernism’
  • 2012: The International Workshop on, Philologies across Asias, organised by Transregionale Studien (Berlin) and the Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi, November – December.
    Paper titled: ‘Reading Vidyapati: Sanskrit in Fifteenth Century’
  • 2012 : The History Seminar,: NMML, Teen Murti House, New Delhi on 24 July.
    Presented paper entitled: ‘Articulating Power in 15th Century Mithila: conceptions of gender, caste and politics in Vidyapati’
  • 2011: The Conference on, What’s New: The Changing Face of Indian Cinema, University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, 8-9 July.
    Paper on: ‘Gender Identities in Popular Hindi Films, 70s to 90s’
  • 2011: The Workshop on Teaching Gender: Problems and Prospects in Different Disciplines, at Institue of Life Long Learning, Delhi University, 10 June.
    Paper on: ‘Teaching Gender: Reporting from an Undergraduate History Class’.
  • 2011: The Conference on The Politics of Identity in South Asia organized by the Department of History and Culture, Jamia Millia Islamia, 21-22 March.
    Paper entitled, ‘Framing the Feminine: Gender Identities in Popular Hindi Films, 1970s-1990s’.
  • 2008: The Conference on, Religion in Indian History: Ideas, Practice and Change, Department of History and Culture, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, 29 February- 1 March. Presented paper entitled: “Texts, Narratives and Identities in Brahmanic Discourse in Early 15th century North Bihar”.
  • 2005: The Conference on, The Material and the Imaginary, organized by Francesca Orsini, Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, March 14. Presented paper entitled “Remapping the north Indian world of thirteenth and early fourteenth century Persian literary production”, co-presented with Sunil Kumar.
  • 2004: The History Society, St.Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, August 26.
    Talk on: “Shortcuts to Secularism: The Two Histories of the Sultanate Period”.
  • 2003: The Symposium on Religion, India International Centre organized by Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and India International Centre December 18-21 Presented paper entitled “Sufis and Sultans: A Critique of Notions of Religion in Sultanate Historiography”.
  • 2003: The Workshop for School Teachers of History, organised by North Delhi University Teachers for School Education, February 22.
    Talk on: “History, Memory and Collective Identities”.
  • 2002: The History Society, Janaki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi, February 5. Lecture on: “Turkish Conquest of North India: Nature, Significance and Problematic”.

Articles in Popular Media and Newspapers/Magazines:

  • 2021 ‘Controversies surrounding curricular changes in higher education is not about Left versus Right’, in Newsnine, 8 September
  • 2020 ‘How could Mughals be our heroes’, in The Quint, 21 September.
  • 2017: ‘History Vs cultural memory? Rajputs also collaborated with British’, Indian Express, 26 November.
  • 2017: ‘The battle over Padmavati is pointless, but a win-¬win for all its participants’, The Print, 17 November.
  • 2017: ‘A saffron shadow over the yellow valley’, Newslaundry, 3 August.
  • 2013: ‘Faulty Foundations’, Outlook Magazine, 30th May, 2013.
  • 2013: ‘Khokhalî Buniyaad ke Paath’, in Jansattaa, 24th May, 2013.
  • 2011: ‘Costly Haste: on Semesterisation of Delhi University Undergraduate Courses’, in Frontline, Vol. 28, issue 14, pp. 25-28. 2nd July -15th July, 2011. (ISSN : 0970-1710).
  • 2007: ‘Obscured by Myth: Conversion or the Art of Asking the Wrong Question’, in The Times of India (editorial), 10th January.

Editorial Work

  • 2021 – Continued: Managing Editor of The Indian Economic and Social History Review
  • 2017 – 2020. Member, Editorial Board, The Indian Economic and Social History Review

Honorary Positions:

  • 2021-26: Member, Advisory Board, for the European Research Council sponsored project on Timely Histories: A Social History of Time in South Asia, hosted by Leibniz Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin.
  • 2014-15: Member, Book Selection Committee, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Teen Murti Bhavan, New Delhi.

Awards and Fellowships:

  • 2019: Month long post-doctoral research fellowship at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin
  • 2016: Awarded a bursary of Rs. 52,000 (3000 Polish Zloty) from European Research Council to travel to Warsaw, Poland to present a paper in the European Conference for South Asian Studies
  • 2013-2014: Fulbright Fellowship for Doctoral Work in University of Texas at Austin, USA
  • 1993-1995: Junior Research Fellow, University Grants Commission.