Jonathan Koshy Varghese (PhD) is a literary scholar and a historian of 19th century and 20th century South Asia. His work involves the study of textual practices such as petitions, memorandums, colonial-state surveillance papers, confidential letters, and judicial statements as they came to be formulated during the course of the 19th and up to the mid-20th century. His work assimilates the textual practices of three archival resources – religious, colonial and judicial – in order to generate a critical, secular and essentially global history of the Suriyani (Christian) community of India. Besides this his scholarly pursuits encompass the concept of the American public intellectual, with particular attention to Edward Said’s fraught position within this sphere. Additionally, he contributes to The Hindu, offering insights on politics, literature, and aesthetics.
Education: PhD, École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)
Email: jonathankvarghese@lsr.edu.in
Academic Affiliations:
- Associate Researcher, Centre de Sciences Humaines (2023 – Present)
- Associate Doctoral Researcher at the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi. (2021-2023)
- Doctoral Researcher at the Centre d’Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (CEIAS) of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris. (2019 – 2023)
Select Publications:
- “Embodying” the Intellectual: Edward Said, public sphere and the university.” Public Humanities. 1 (e28), 1-11, 2024. London: Cambridge University Press. Access to the article: https://doi.org/10.1017/pub.2024.34.
- Review of Nienke Boer’s The Briny South: Displacement and Sentiment in the Indian Ocean World. Durham and London: Duke University Press, in the SAMAJ, Paris, 2024.
- In Search of Ephrem the Syrian: Suriani and the Materiality of Faith, Occasional Publication 89, IIC: Delhi, December 2018.
Invited Lectures:
- “Edwaad i.e. Edward: Distinguishing the Palestinian-Said from the American-Said.” At the O.P. Jindal Global University, 9th April, 2024.
- The Viceroy and the Patriarch: Empire and the Suriyani of Travancore” at the O.P. Jindal Global University, 9th April, 2024.
- Priest, Soldier, Spy: British colonial archive and the many lives of Gabriel de Vogt at the Centre de Sciences Humaines, 17 th April, 2023.
- Suriyani in the Age of Surveillance at the School of Gandhian Thought and Development Studies at Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala. 22nd June, 2022.
- Documentation and Displacement: Revisiting Edward Said’s Palestine” as part of the International Conference Confronting Disaster: From Vulnerability to Resilience organised by the Department of Sociology, NSS HINDU College, Changanacherry, Kerala. 24th January, 2020.
- Narrativising the Suriani Church” at the School of Gandhian Thought and Development Studies, MG University, Kottayam. 21st January, 2020.
Paper Presentation:
- “Mapping State Frontiers in Colonial South Asia, Early 19th Century,” in conference State and Society: New Approaches to State-People Relations in South Asia (19th-20th century) organised by Centre de Sciences Humaines and I.D.E.A.S., Jindal Global University on 26th -27th September, 2024.
- “Interimperial minorities and Oceanic Dialogue,” in The Syncretic Traditions in the Subcontinent over the Ages: Contemporary Challenges organised by India International Centre and Dara Shikoh Centre for the Arts on 25th and 26th November 2024
- Heretics, Heathens and Christians; or How the Church of England produced the History of the Syriac Christians as part of the Ethics, Method and Transformative Justice conference Second City Anthropology Conference organised by the University of Illinois. 22nd April, 2022.
- The Littoral and the Non Literal: The Many Imaginations of the Syrian Christians of Kerala” as part of the SAGSC XVII Conference Reception, Tradition, Canonization: Pasts and Presents in South Asia organised by the University of Chicago, March 5-6, 2020.
- Suriani: Architecture and Narrative” at the Khoja Studies Conference organised by the Florida International University, CEIAS (EHESS) and the University of Mumbai, January 30-31, 2019.
- “Suriani Murals and the Act of Viewing” as part of the panel, ‘Anti-Colonial Text, Image, and Imagination’ at the conference: Creative Criticality in Colonial and Indigenous Archives organised at the University of Chicago Centre, by the University of Chicago, April 22-23, 2019.
- After the Last Sky and Reading the Photograph” as special discussant and speaker for International Colloquium on Translating/Transcreating Travel and Life ‘Writings’ from the Arab World in Visual Modes. (Organized by India Arab Cultural Centre and Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia. 8th March, 2017.
- Translating the Exilic Condition: Edward Said as Writer and Self. UGC SAP-DRS Phase III, UGC National Seminar on Translating/Transcreating the Cultures of Existence, 24th and 25th November 2016. Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia.
- Edward Said: Writing as Performance. Annual International Conference at Shiv Nadar University: Habits and Practices of Writing, February 19th and 20th, 2016