Michael S. Dodson

• Assistant Professor, Department of History
• Adjunct Assistant Professor, Cultural Studies Program
• Adjunct Assistant Professor, India Studies Program

Education

• Ph.D. at University of Cambridge, 2003

Contact Information

Ballantine Hall, Rm. 726

(812) 855-6286

Background

I am a historian of British imperialism in South Asia, focusing particularly upon the intellectual and cultural history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. My approach to South Asian history was forged under two very different mentors at the University of Cambridge. One, an imperial historian, urged upon me the wider, world contexts in which the British empire flourished, and the importance of making big arguments, while the other, a Sanskritist and philologer, emphasized the importance of a deep understanding of Indian language and culture, and never losing sight of the tenacity of South Asian cultural forms. My research work, and in particular, my first book, Orientalism, Empire, and National Culture: India 1770-1880, attempts to do justice to both these imperatives, by arguing that orientalism was a highly localized practice in India, with links to both the East India Company's governing authority, as well as the social consolidation of pandits (Indian "learned men"). I have worked extensively in the archives and libraries of India, and spend much of my research time in the north Indian city of Varanasi. Research projects I'm currently working on include an edited collection of nineteenth-century photographs and historical essays on Varanasi; a study of the evolution in British historical writing during the eighteenth century; and a book which explains the complex genealogies of Hindu nationalist thought on the topic of science and religion.

Selected Awards

New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities (IU), New Perspectives Conference Grant 2007

College Arts and Humanities Institute (IU), Faculty Fellowship 2006

Research Interests

• South Asian cultural and intellectual history
• British imperial history
• Postcolonial theory

Courses Recently Taught

• Introduction to South Asian History and Civilization
• Modern South Asia
• Islam and Empire in South Asia
• Britain and its Empire
• The British Empire in Asia and Africa
• Postcolonial Theory and Historiography
• The Cultural History of British Imperialism in South Asia

Publication Highlights

Books

Orientalism, Empire, and National Culture: India, 1770-1880. (Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

Articles

"Contesting Translations: Orientalism and the Interpretation of the Vedas" in Modern Intellectual History, 2007 (part of a special issue on intellectual histories of India).

"Orientalism and Archaeology: Writing the History of South Asia, 1600-1860" in S. Guha, ed., Sir John Marshall: Archaeology, Photography, and the Creation of a Past, (New York: Prestel Publishing, 2007).

"Translating Science, Translating Empire: The Power of Language in Colonial North India" in Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2005.

"Re-Presented for the Pandits: James Ballantyne, 'Useful Knowledge,' and Sanskrit Scholarship in Benares College During the Mid-Nineteenth Century" in Modern Asian Studies, 2002