Pratik Chakrabarti
@pratik-hstm.bsky.social
Historian of Science and Medicine. Forthcoming book, Science as White Epistemology. Director "Health is Politics" https://uh.edu/class/history/about/project-on-health-is-politics/
Pinned
Snippets from our amazing inaugural graduate conference in the history of science, technology, and medicine. Organized entirely by UH Graduate students, particularly Katie Truax and Muthuvel Deivendran, these were two intense days of stimulating discussions, camaraderie, and fun
November 10, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Snippets from our amazing inaugural graduate conference in the history of science, technology, and medicine. Organized entirely by UH Graduate students, particularly Katie Truax and Muthuvel Deivendran, these were two intense days of stimulating discussions, camaraderie, and fun
I sometimes wonder why earthosphere is not a word. It nicely and at times necessarily fixes the fact of earth being round and embracing in a single inseparable word.
November 9, 2025 at 8:12 PM
I sometimes wonder why earthosphere is not a word. It nicely and at times necessarily fixes the fact of earth being round and embracing in a single inseparable word.
Reading Michael Cook’s A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity, I wonder what the reaction would be if a Muslim scholar wrote a similar history of Christianity. None of the praises are by Muslim scholars. I value this diversity, but imagine it reversed…
A History of the Muslim World
A panoramic history of the Muslim world from the age of the Prophet Muḥammad to the birth of the modern era
press.princeton.edu
November 6, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Reading Michael Cook’s A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity, I wonder what the reaction would be if a Muslim scholar wrote a similar history of Christianity. None of the praises are by Muslim scholars. I value this diversity, but imagine it reversed…
This just popped up on my phone. Can't believe it's been 5 years since Inscriptions of Nature was published.
November 4, 2025 at 1:13 PM
This just popped up on my phone. Can't believe it's been 5 years since Inscriptions of Nature was published.
Reposted by Pratik Chakrabarti
This is also why, as academics, we need to get better at asking for fees for freelance work - podcasts, public talks, festival events, “just picking your brain for this tv programme”- not b/c we need the money (though many do!) but b/c others do, and if we work for free, we undermine *their* living.
My last post was about how my work is currently featured in 3 of the biggest magazines around but I can only do my film work thanks to the generosity and patience of my husband who earns a stable wage and I also have a pub job. Money is a CONSTANT stress despite what might look like me 'succeeding'.
I literally never made an actual living as a writer & the reason I got to go at it as long as I did was mainly because of B. Also, tons of side hustles too.
I’ve been exhausted since 2010, lol
I’ve been exhausted since 2010, lol
November 3, 2025 at 8:43 AM
This is also why, as academics, we need to get better at asking for fees for freelance work - podcasts, public talks, festival events, “just picking your brain for this tv programme”- not b/c we need the money (though many do!) but b/c others do, and if we work for free, we undermine *their* living.
Reposted by Pratik Chakrabarti
Obituary is best served cold.
Named in a similar (morbid) spirit as the Corpse Reviver and Death in the Afternoon, this New Orleans drink is best served very cold. nyti.ms/4oGQGjc
October 31, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Obituary is best served cold.
Going to an art school, I have realized so much of our current ideas in the Humanities also circulate in the arts. We are asked to think of time as not linear, of space that is not mappable, of entanglements in rhizomes. I guess this is what is called a paradigm.
October 31, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Going to an art school, I have realized so much of our current ideas in the Humanities also circulate in the arts. We are asked to think of time as not linear, of space that is not mappable, of entanglements in rhizomes. I guess this is what is called a paradigm.
Obituary is best served cold.
Named in a similar (morbid) spirit as the Corpse Reviver and Death in the Afternoon, this New Orleans drink is best served very cold. nyti.ms/4oGQGjc
October 31, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Obituary is best served cold.
Preparing for two back-to-back lectures I am giving to my graduate class tomorrow on "Social History and the Question of Agency" and "The Anthropocene and Environmental History". I feel dead.
October 29, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Preparing for two back-to-back lectures I am giving to my graduate class tomorrow on "Social History and the Question of Agency" and "The Anthropocene and Environmental History". I feel dead.
Ok, i admit. I have just used the word "trope" to a grad student in feedback. Please forgive me.
October 27, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Ok, i admit. I have just used the word "trope" to a grad student in feedback. Please forgive me.
When this world is too much for you.
October 27, 2025 at 4:57 PM
When this world is too much for you.
During Covid, social media felt like a refuge. Now it feels like a cauldron of despair.
October 27, 2025 at 3:06 PM
During Covid, social media felt like a refuge. Now it feels like a cauldron of despair.
Reposted by Pratik Chakrabarti
Bodleian Library, Sassoon Visiting Fellowship in South Asian and Black History for the 2026-2027 academic year.
It's a great scheme, with a deadline of 28 November 2025. Check it and Bodley's other visiting fellowships out here.
It's a great scheme, with a deadline of 28 November 2025. Check it and Bodley's other visiting fellowships out here.
Bodleian Visiting Fellowships in Special Collections
www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk
October 27, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Bodleian Library, Sassoon Visiting Fellowship in South Asian and Black History for the 2026-2027 academic year.
It's a great scheme, with a deadline of 28 November 2025. Check it and Bodley's other visiting fellowships out here.
It's a great scheme, with a deadline of 28 November 2025. Check it and Bodley's other visiting fellowships out here.
I joineda crash course in mixmedia art. First week's task, a self-portrait in collage with your everyday items. This is what I came up with. Honest opinion will be appreciated although I am bracing myself already!
October 25, 2025 at 5:24 PM
I joineda crash course in mixmedia art. First week's task, a self-portrait in collage with your everyday items. This is what I came up with. Honest opinion will be appreciated although I am bracing myself already!
An evening to celebrate. Nandini's birthday but she doesn't want her photo here, so you guys are stuck with me
October 22, 2025 at 1:10 AM
An evening to celebrate. Nandini's birthday but she doesn't want her photo here, so you guys are stuck with me
I dont know how I would feel if Egyptian artifacts, which are anyway stolen, were stolen from the Louvre.
October 21, 2025 at 7:24 PM
I dont know how I would feel if Egyptian artifacts, which are anyway stolen, were stolen from the Louvre.
A gentle, due to the state of the world, but heartfelt Happy Diwali to you all.
October 20, 2025 at 12:56 AM
A gentle, due to the state of the world, but heartfelt Happy Diwali to you all.
Spot the difference.
October 14, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Spot the difference.
Thanks for applying. However,...
Promotion and tenure denied.
In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.
rm -rf ~/
rm -rf ~/
October 12, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Thanks for applying. However,...
Reposted by Pratik Chakrabarti
Promotion and tenure denied.
In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.
rm -rf ~/
rm -rf ~/
"The chancellor approved it"
October 12, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Promotion and tenure denied.
Reposted by Pratik Chakrabarti
Going to re-post this occasionally, with added mention that I’m very happy to do more talks about it
In better news my book is coming out in paperback next March (pre-orders now available)! www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
Flooded Pasts by William Carruthers | Hardcover | Cornell University Press
Flooded Pasts examines a world famous yet critically underexamined event—UNESCO's International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia (1960–80)—to show how the project, its genealogy, and its...
www.cornellpress.cornell.edu
October 12, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Going to re-post this occasionally, with added mention that I’m very happy to do more talks about it
History is not a depiction of what happened. It's a struggle against what we have been told as have happened.
October 11, 2025 at 8:01 PM
History is not a depiction of what happened. It's a struggle against what we have been told as have happened.
Saturday lunchtime kitchen site. I cooked an Indian version of Chinese veg hakka stir fry noodles, without soysauce and green chillies (key ingredients but we didn't have any). Let that sink in, while I finishmylunch. Notice the bottle of wine in the middle. It played a central role.
October 11, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Saturday lunchtime kitchen site. I cooked an Indian version of Chinese veg hakka stir fry noodles, without soysauce and green chillies (key ingredients but we didn't have any). Let that sink in, while I finishmylunch. Notice the bottle of wine in the middle. It played a central role.
Here's the preliminary program of our graduate conference "Narratives and Counter Narratives"
healthispolitics.my.canva.site
healthispolitics.my.canva.site
Narratives and Counter-Narratives: Decolonizing Science & Medicine
healthispolitics.my.canva.site
October 11, 2025 at 12:25 PM
Here's the preliminary program of our graduate conference "Narratives and Counter Narratives"
healthispolitics.my.canva.site
healthispolitics.my.canva.site