Publications


Books:

2014 The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion and the Social in Modern India, Columbia University Press, Cultures of History Series.

1997 In Their Own Voices: Teenage Refugees and Immigrants from India Speak Out, (Rosen Publishing Group: New York).


Peer-reviewed articles:

2015 "The Commission as Form: The Mishra Report and Representative Governance in Modern India" in South Asia, Special Issue: Revisiting Publics in South Asia after 25 Years, forthcoming.

2014 " "Labour," the "Depressed Classes" and the Politics of Distinctions, Madras 1918-1924," forthcoming in International Review of Social History.

2013 "The Emergence of Authenticity and the Giving of Accounts: Conversion in Madras, c. 1900," Comparative Studies in Society and History.

2010 "Spiritual Slavery, Material Malaise: Missionaries, "Untouchables" and Religious Neutrality in Colonial South India," Historical Research, 83 (219), 124-45.


Book sections:

2019 "Privilege, Power and Dissent: Two Millennia of Debating Caste," co-written with Joel Lee, in Sources of Indian Tradition, eds. Rachel McDermott, Vidya Dehejia and Indira Peterson, Columbia University Press: New York.


2015 "Caste and Untouchability," in Brian Hatcher, ed., Hinduism in the Modern World, Routledge: New York.

2015 "Silent Minority: Celebrated Difference, Caste Difference, and the Hinduization of Independent India," in Steven Vertovec, ed., Routledge International Handbook of Diversity Studies, Routledge: New York.

2010 "Understanding Collector J. H. A. Tremenheere's 'Note on the Pariahs of Chingleput'" in V. Alex, ed., Tremenheere's 'Note on the Pariahs of Chingleput' (Madurai: Veliyidu), in Tamil, translated by V. Alex.


Encyclopedia articles:

2012 "Dalits" in Brill Encyclopedia of Hinduism, ed. Knut Jacobsen.

1999 Articles on "Ayyappan," "Shirdi Sai Baba," "Brahmakumaris" and "Sathya Sai Baba," in Wendy Doniger, ed., Encyclopedia of World Religions, (Merriam Webster: New York).



Book reviews:

2017 Review of Dalit Women’s Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination by Shailaja Paik and The Gender of Caste: Representing Dalits in Print, by Charu Gupta. American Historical Review 122 (4).

2015 Review of Nation and Family: Personal Law, Cultural Pluralism and Gendered Citizenship in India, by Narendra Subramanian. Comparative and Commonwealth Politics, 53 (3).

2012 Review of Secularism and Religion Making, eds. Arvind-Pal S. Mandair and Markus Dressler in Religious Studies Review, 38 (4), December.

2010 "Policy and Politics in the Career of B. R. Ambedkar," Book Review of Narender Kumar and Sukhadeo Thorat, B. R. Ambedkar: Perspectives on Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policies, H-Asia, H-Net Reviews, May 2010.

2009 Book Review of Michael Dodson, Orientalism, Empire and National Culture: India, 1770?1880, Journal of Asian Studies 68 (4), 1335-1337.



INVITED PAPERS


2014 "The Making of the People and the Event of Atrocity: Violence and Democracy in Postcolonial Tamil Nadu." Paper presented Nov. 13 at the Colloquium of the Ethnologie Department, University of Göttingen.

2014 "Land, Labour and Unfreedom: Problems in the Historiography of Slavery in India." Paper presented at the Colloquium of the Extra-European and Global History Department, ETH Zürich

2014 "The Commission as Form: The Mishra Report and Representative Governance in Modern India," at Northwestern University, at a workshop on "Imagining Publics in India," May 16-17.

2013 Invited speaker at symposium entitled "Caste, Christianity and Coexistence," Southern Methodist University, September 28.

2012 "Religion, Rights and the Social: Subordination and Space in Colonial South India," South Asian Studies Colloquium, Yale University, October 3.

2012 "Translating the Apocalypse: Polyglot Pentecostalism and Interlinguistic Intimacy," paper presented at the "Sacred and the City" workshop, Center for South Asian Studies, Stanford University, October 4.

2012 "Questioning Conversion: Authenticity and the Legacies of Unfreedom in Modern India," Religious Studies/ Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, Stanford University, October 5.

2012 "Is Religion to Difference as Caste is to Inequality?" Inaugural Lecture delivered at the Lichtenberg Kolleg, University of Göttingen.

2011 "'Labour': Episodes in the Political-Administrative Career of a Concept, Madras c.1920," Annenberg Seminar Series, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania, January 18.

2010 Invited participant on the panel "Mobilizing Minorities" at Religion and Media Preconference Workshop, American Academy of Religion Meeting, Oct. 29.

2009 Invited panelist at roundtable on "India: Religion, Politics and Culture" with Wendy Doniger and David Lelyveld, at the South Asian Literature Association Annual Meeting (allied with the Modern Language Association), December 26?7.

2009 "Authenticity and Conversion." Invited paper presented at a workshop entitled "Tradition in the Present" with participants including Hussein Agrama, Talal Asad, Ebrahim Moosa, Andrew Sartori, David Scott, and Jon Wilson, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, May 18.

2009 "Conversion as Movement of the Soul," Department of History, University of Washington, St. Louis, March 20.

2009 "The Realm of Rights," Department of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania, February 12.

2008 "Caste and the Religious Paradox." Invited paper presented at "Dalit Agendas," an international conference at the University of Pennsylvania, December 3?5.

2008 "Caste and Secularism." Invited paper presented at a workshop on "Six Hundred Years of Religious Conflict in India," organized by Rajeev Bhargava and Sudipta Kaviraj, Columbia University, November 8.

2008 "Religion, Secularism, Solicitude: Ways of Speaking about Pariah Conversion in Colonial Madras," Comparative Histories of Asia Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London.

2008 "The Realm of Rights," South Asian History Seminar, University of Oxford.



CONFERENCES ORGANIZED AND CONFERENCE PAPERS DELIVERED

2014 Panelist on a roundtable discussion on the controversy surrounding Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: A History, at the American Academy of Religion Meetings, San Diego, Nov. 22.

2013 Co-organizer of "In the Name of the Ordinary," an international workshop on the invocation of "ordinariness" in modern Indian politics, held June 10-11, University of Göttingen.

2012 Organized a panel entitled "Religion, Toleration, Progress: Liberalism in and Against Hindu Thought" and gave a paper entitled "Making Way: Two Faces of Religion and the Liberal Concept of Abstract Space," at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Nov. 17-20.

2012 Co-organizer of "ExtraPolitics," an international workshop on political informality held Dec. 6-7, 2012, University of Göttingen.

2011 "Heteronomy and the Archive: The Ambiguities of Welfarism in Colonial Madras." Paper presented at the American Historical Association Meeting, Jan. 6-9.

2010 "Religion and Rights in Colonial India." Paper presented at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Oct. 30.

2010 "Thinking about Mobilization: Naming and Narratives in Tamil Dalit Politics." Organized a panel and presented a paper at the Tamil Studies Conference, Toronto, May 14.

2010 "Religion and the Concept of the People." Organized and presented a paper in a panel at the Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, March 25- 28.

2010 "'Labour': Episodes in the Political-Administrative Career of a Concept, Madras 1918-1924." Paper presented at the Association of Indian Labour Historians Conference, March 19.

2009-10 Convener of year-long departmental colloquium, under the theme "Religion and the Concept of the People," held at the South Asia Studies Department, University of Pennsylvania. Speakers included Bernard Bate, Sudipta Kaviraj, Uday Mehta, Laurie Patton, Mridu Rai, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, and Vazira Zamindar.

2009 "Dalit Religion and Topographies of Domination" Organized and presented a paper in a panel at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 7-10, Montreal.

2009 "Dalits and Tamil Non-Brahminism." Paper presented at the Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, March 26-29.

2008 Co-organised with Eleanor Newbigin, (History, University of Cambridge) and presented a paper at a workshop entitled "Talking about rights in colonial India" with participants including Kriti Kapila, Gurminder Bhambra, Chandra Mallampalli, Norbert Peabody and David Washbrook at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, on April 23.