kalramnath
kalramnath.bsky.social
kalramnath
@kalramnath.bsky.social
writing and teaching histories of 19 and 20c South Asia and the Indian Ocean World
Pinned
Boats in a Storm gets an India edition with Westland Books @westlandbooks.bsky.social!

Releasing on 18 August.
The Belonging Project is off to a fantastic start today!

It was wonderful to host Mohsin Alam Bhat, Shardul Gopujkar, and Arushi Gupta, the co-authors of the "Unmaking Citizens: The Architecture of Rights Violations and Exclusion in India’s Citizenship Trials":

www.nls.ac.in/wp-content/u...
November 7, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by kalramnath
In case you missed it:

There is a new special issue of the Journal of American Ethnic History ( @illinoispress.bsky.social ) guest edited by @migrantherstory.bsky.social and @irpinaingiro.bsky.social on "Immigration and Citizenship."

scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jaeh/iss...
Volume 44 Issue 4 | Journal of American Ethnic History | Scholarly Publishing Collective
scholarlypublishingcollective.org
November 6, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Congratulations, @kalathmika.bsky.social !
My book Coolie Migrants, Indian Diplomacy is out with @hurstpublishers.bsky.social. It has been shaped by the support of a great community of scholars - grateful for generous endorsements from
@rahulraothariel.bsky.social @katesde.bsky.social @kalramnath.bsky.social

Order here - shorturl.at/55NjW
November 4, 2025 at 4:59 PM
A privilege to review Nadeera Rupesinghe's Lawmaking in Dutch Sri Lanka: a must read and instant classic on legal pluralism -

bmgn-lchr.nl/article/view...
View of Nadeera Rupesinghe, Lawmaking in Dutch Sri Lanka: Navigating Pluralities in a Colonial Society
BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review is the leading academic journal for the history of the Low Countries
bmgn-lchr.nl
October 31, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by kalramnath
Did you miss us at the 2025 Annual Conference on South Asia? You can still enjoy our virtual exhibit: receive a 30% discount on the books listed using the discount code S25CSA at checkout, good between 10/15/2025 - 11/25/2025.
Conference on South Asia: A Virtual Exhibit | Stanford University Press
Please enjoy this Virtual Book Exhibit and receive a 30% discount on the books listed below using the discount code S25CSA  at checkout, good between 10/15/2025 - 11/25/2025.
www.sup.org
October 27, 2025 at 10:02 PM
Reposted by kalramnath
The 2020 coastal land use map of Great Nicobar showed coral reefs hugging its shores. In the 2021 version, the reefs vanished from the coast and reappeared in the middle of the sea.

Experts told Vaishnavi Rathore they doubt the map’s authenticity.

scroll.in/article/1087...
October 23, 2025 at 6:19 AM
Reposted by kalramnath
I have a new article out.

TLDR: Actively courting deportation by air is a way to claim rights as a stateless person and even as a refugee.

academic.oup.com/past/advance...
Air Travel, Statelessness, and the Rights Claims of Ugandan Asians, c.1973*
Abstract. In the aftermath of Idi Amin’s expulsion of Uganda’s South Asians in 1972, some of those made technically stateless arrived in India unsupported
academic.oup.com
October 9, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by kalramnath
my book (!) ‘A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka’ encompassing a decade of research on Tamil photographic practices set against a backdrop of ethno/nationalist conflict & the island’s turbulent post/war out Spring 26 uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...
A Volatile Picture
uwapress.uw.edu
October 12, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Reposted by kalramnath
For legal historians: did you publish a book recently that won't be represented at the Detroit ASLH conference book sale in Nov.2025? You should bring a copy for this new initiative to showcase your work! Much needed as only a few publishers are represented at the book sale: aslh.net/new-works-in...
New Works in Legal History: Displays at the Detroit Meeting | American Society for Legal History
New Works in Legal History: Many legal historians publish books with presses that are not represented at the conference book sale. In recognition of this fact, the ASLH will host a table to showcase t...
aslh.net
September 26, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Reposted by kalramnath
The cover for my book, The Future That Was, is now live! It features the MacArthur genius artist Shahzia Sikander's Infinite Woman (2021), where earth is surrounded by an infinite series of women marching around the globe who, from afar, become rays of the sun ☀️

press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
The Future That Was
How Third World women seized the means of knowledge production to fight against rising authoritarianism and imagine a future freer than our present
press.princeton.edu
September 26, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by kalramnath
Very excited that the Asian Legal History Association will be formally launched at 2 events in March 2026--at Chinese University of Hong Kong (March 17-18, 2026) + Oxford (March 23)! Here's the Call for Papers for "Legal History in Asia and Beyond" (due Oct31): www.law.cuhk.edu.hk/app/events/c...
Call for Papers – Legal History in Asia and Beyond: Lessons from the Past for the Present - The Chinese University of Hong Kong
The Transnational Legal History Group, part of the Centre for Comparative and Transnational Law within the Faculty of Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Oxford Programme in Asian Laws of the Faculty Read more…
www.law.cuhk.edu.hk
September 7, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Spent the day with a wonderful filmmaker/artist named Gogularaajan in Kuala Lumpur who’s doing such important work in reconstructing the voices of indentured Tamil Malaysian laborers obscured by the colonial archive.
August 20, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Boats in a Storm gets an India edition with Westland Books @westlandbooks.bsky.social!

Releasing on 18 August.
August 13, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by kalramnath
How a small island nation that produced virtually none of the emissions changing Earth's climate is struggling to move its people and villages uphill amidst USAID and other foreign assistance cutbacks: wapo.st/3JsEao4 [gift link]
Faced with rising seas and falling aid, Fijian villages move uphill
As the effects of climate change are felt across the Pacific, Fiji has become an authority on the logistically and culturally fraught process of community relocation.
wapo.st
August 10, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Reposted by kalramnath
"Tamil asylum denial was not only a matter of domestic politics, but one that crucially entailed international and transnational dimensions."

Niro Kandasamy on the complex history and politics of asylum denial.

www.historyworkshop....
Asylum Denial Beyond Borders
Niro Kandasamy explores the international dimensions of asylum denial and its impact on Tamil asylum seekers in the 1980s and beyond.
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
August 5, 2025 at 3:45 PM
My review of Vineeta Sinha's Temple Tracks: Labor, Piety and Railway Construction in Asia.

Absolutely brilliant on history & memory, ruination & revival, the role of labor, gender, kinship & religion, identities that travel, morph & unsettle across oceans.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Sinha, Vineeta. (2023). Temple tracks: Labor, piety, and railway construction in Asia. Berghahn Books. 346 pages. ISBN: 978-1-80539-016-9 (Hardcover)
www.sciencedirect.com
August 5, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by kalramnath
This is going to be a fantastic book.
Kerry Goettlich, From Frontiers to Borders: How Colonial Technicians Created Modern Territoriality - Cambridge University Press, August 2025
www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...
July 30, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Reposted by kalramnath
Taking up the sorry task of trying to AI-proof the syllabus for my research seminar. Please share tips, advice, examples.
July 19, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Reposted by kalramnath
Really pleased and proud to announce a new @ihr.bsky.social seminar - Migration and Mobility History. We want to cover migration across time and space and speak with colleagues across disciplines. If you're interested in attending/presenting, get in touch: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
Migration and Mobility History
The IHR Migration and Mobility seminar provides a space for historians and scholars from other disciplines to come together to discuss migration and mobility in history.
www.history.ac.uk
July 11, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by kalramnath
👌
July 9, 2025 at 7:20 AM
A generous review of Boats in a Storm for readers of Simplified Chinese:

mp.weixin.qq.com/s/HuYp6TK6wG...
暴风雨中的船只:南亚与东南亚的法律、移民与去殖民化 | 东南亚地区《区域动态》6月期
本期东南亚区域动态分为“学术动态”及“时事动态”两大板块。
mp.weixin.qq.com
June 28, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Reposted by kalramnath
Our Special 20th Anniversary Issue ends with a Postscript written by Kalyani Ramnath, Editor-in-Chief of SLR in 2007. Ramnath reflects on SLR’s journey, particularly the initial years, placing the question of socio-legal in an institutional context. repository.nls.ac.in/slr/vol20/is...
June 25, 2025 at 5:48 AM