About our staff

I studied Sociology at the University of Leeds and then taught Sociology, Politics and History in Further Education for fifteen years before embarking on postgraduate study at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. I completed my Masters in South Asian Area Studies in 2002 and PhD in South Asian History in 2006. I have held lectureships in South Asian History at SOAS, 2006-2007; University of Leeds, 2007-2008; Goldsmiths College, University of London 2008-2011; and arrived in Edinburgh in 2011.

Summary of research interests

• Asia

• Comparative & Global History
• Culture
• Ideas
• Imperialism

• Early Modern
• Eighteenth Century
• Nineteenth Century
• Twentieth Century & After

My research interests broadly concern the intellectual, cultural and political history of modern South Asia. Specifically, I am interested in the relationship between culture and society with reference to early twentieth-century literary and artistic movements and the role of intellectuals as public figures is helping to shape civic discourse on matters of state and society. My research interests include South Asian film and history and the uses of filmic sources as mediums through which to investigate the historicising, making and re-making of modern identities; pre-modern state formation and economic development in early and medieval India; Indian soldiers and the colonial experience of war; the 1960s and the South Asian encounter.

• Gandhi and Popular Movements in India, 1915-1950 - Honours Special Subject
• Postcolonial South Asia - Hoonours elective
• Medieval Islamic Empires - Honours elective
• Global Connections - Pre-Honours

• Cinema and Society in South Asia - MSc