Polly O'Hanlon

Position:

Retired Professor in Indian History and Culture 

Faculty / College Address:

Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies / St Cross College

Email:

rosalind.ohanlon@ames.ox.ac.uk 

Research Interests:

  • Social and intellectual history of India
  • Histories of caste in India
  • Histories of empire, gender and the body
  • Social and religious history of Maharashtra

Current Projects:

Courses Taught:

  • History and Culture of South Asia
  • Societies and Economies in India, c. 1600-1800
  • Gender and Society in India, c. 1800 to the present.

Supervision Areas:

I welcome enquiries from graduate students interested in the following areas of research: social history of early modern Maharashtra; social and religious history of colonial India; discourses and practices of gender in India; social history of Hinduism; histories of the body in India.

Recent Publications:

Books

2014.  At the Edges of Empire: Essays in the Social and Intellectual History of India.  New Delhi: Permanent Black. 

Edited Books and Journal Special Issues

2015.  Discipline, Sect, Lineage and Community: Scholar-Intellectuals in Early Modern India.  Routledge: London and New York.  First published as a Special Issue of South Asian History and Culture, 6, 1 (2015).  With Christopher Minkowski and Anand Venkatkrishnan.  

2012.  Religious Cultures in Early Modern India: New Perspectives.   Routledge: London and New York.  First published as a Special Issue of South Asian History and Culture, 2, 2 (2011).  With David Washbrook.

2010.  ‘Knowledges in Circulation in Early Modern India’.  Special Issue of Modern Asian Studies, 44, 2.

2010.  ‘Munshis, Pandits and Record Keepers: Scribal Communities and Historical Change in India’.   Special Issue of Indian Social and Economic History Review 47, 4.  With David Washbrook. 

Articles

2016.  ‘Gota, Majālis and Panchayat: Petitioning and Judicial Institutions in western India, c. 1600-1820’.  In Robert Travers and Rohit De (eds.), Petitions and Political Culture in South Asia.  Special Issue of Modern Asian Studies, forthcoming.

2016.  ‘Caste and Its Histories in Colonial India: A Reappraisal’.  In Joya Chatterjee and Prasannan Parasarathi (eds.), Festschrift for David Washbrook: Special Issue of Modern Asian Studies, forthcoming.

2016.  ‘Maratha Empire’.  In John Mackenzie (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Empire.  John Wiley and Sons.

2015.  ‘Social History in the Study of Indian Intellectual Cultures?’  In Christopher Minkowski, Rosalind O’Hanlon and Anand Venkatkrishnan (eds.), ‘Discipline, Sect, Lineage and Community: Scholar-Intellectuals in Early Modern India’.  Special Issue of South Asian History and Culture, 6, 1: 1-9.  With Christopher Minkowski and Anand Venkatkrishnan.  Doi: 10.1080/19472498.2014.969006

2015.  ‘Discourses of caste over the longue durée: Gopīnātha and social classification in India, c. 1400–1900’.  In Christopher Minkowski, Rosalind O’Hanlon and Anand Venkatkrishnan (eds.), ‘Discipline, Sect, Lineage and Community: Scholar-Intellectuals in Early Modern India’.  Special Issue of South Asian History and Culture, 6, 1: 102-129, doi: 10.1080/19472498.2014.969013.  With Gergely Hidas and Csaba Kiss.

2014.  ‘“Pre-Modern” Pasts: South Asia’.  In Prasenjit Duara, Viren Murthy and Andrew Sartori (eds.), A Companion to Global Historical Thought, 108-121. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons. 

2014.  ‘Disciplining the Brahman Household: The moral mission of empire in the eighteenth century Maratha state’.  In Kumkum Roy (ed.), Looking Within, Looking Without: Exploring Households in the Subcontinent Through Time.  Essays in Memory of Nandita Prasad Sahai.  New Delhi: Primus Books.

2013.  ‘Scribal migrations in early modern India’.  In Joya Chatterjee and David Washbrook (eds).  Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora, 32-41.  Routledge: London and New York.

2013.  ‘Performance in a World of Paper: Puranic Histories and Social communication in Early Modern India’. Past and Present, no. 219: 87-126.

2013.  ‘Contested Conjunctures: Brahman Communities and “Early Modernity” in India’.  American Historical Review, 118, 3: 765-787.

2012.  ‘Colonialism and Social Identities in Flux: Class, Caste and Religious Community’.  In Douglas M. Peers and Nandini Gooptu (eds.), India and the British Empire, 100-134.  Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Reprinted in At the Edges of Empire (ATEE) (above).

2011.  ‘Religious cultures in an imperial landscape’.  In Rosalind O’Hanlon and David Washbrook (eds.), ‘Religious Cultures in Early Modern India: New Perspectives’.  Special Issue of South Asian History and Culture, 2, 2: 133-137.  With David Washbrook.

2011.  ‘Speaking from Siva’s Temple: Banaras Scholar Households and the Brahman ‘Ecumene’ of Mughal India’.  In Rosalind O’Hanlon and David Washbrook (eds.), ‘Religious Cultures in Early Modern India: New Perspectives’.  Special Issue of South Asian History and Culture, 2, 2: 253-277. 

2010.  ‘Letters Home: Banaras pandits and the Maratha Regions in early modern India’. Modern Asian Studies, 44, 2: 201-240.

2010.  ‘The Social Worth of Scribes: Brahmans, Kayasthas and the Social Order in Early Modern India’.  Indian Social and Economic History Review 47, 4: 563-595.

2009.  ‘Narratives of Penance and Purification in Western India, c. 1650-1850’.  Journal of Hindu Studies, 2, 1: 48-75. 

2008.  ‘What Makes People Who They Are? Pandit Networks and the Problem of Livelihoods in Early Modern Western India’.  Indian Economic and Social History Review 45, 3: 381-416.  With Christopher Minkowski.

2007.  'Kingdom, household and body: history, gender and imperial service under Akbar'. Modern Asian Studies, 41.5: 889-923. 

2007.  'Cultural Pluralism, Empire and the State in Early Modern South Asia'.  Indian Economic and Social History Review, 44, 3: 363-381. 

2007.  'Military Sports and the History of the Martial Body in India'.  Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 50, 4: 490-523. 

Photograph of Polly O'Hanlon