Prof. Dr. Ravi Ahuja, Projektleiter bei MIDA

Prof. Dr. Ravi Ahuja

Prin­ci­pal Investigator

Email:
Ravi.Ahuja[at]phil.uni-goettingen.de

Address:
Wald­weg 26
37073 Göt­tin­gen
Ger­many

Career

Ravi Ahu­ja is head of the research group ‘Mod­ern Indi­an His­to­ry’ at the Cen­tre for Mod­ern Indi­an Stud­ies of Georg-August-Uni­ver­si­ty Göttingen.

Ravi Ahu­ja has worked on var­i­ous aspects of India’s social his­to­ry from 18th to 20th cen­tu­ry includ­ing urban his­to­ry, the his­to­ry of infra­struc­ture and the social his­to­ry of war. His research inter­ests have increas­ing­ly moved towards con­tem­po­rary his­to­ry. Cur­rent research projects exam­ine the social his­to­ry of South Asian sea­far­ers and the emer­gence of a labour-cen­tred social pol­i­cy in mid-twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry India. After teach­ing at the South Asia Insti­tute in Hei­del­berg and con­duct­ing research at the Cen­tre for Mod­ern Ori­en­tal Stud­ies in Berlin he was appoint­ed Pro­fes­sor of Mod­ern South Asian His­to­ry at the School of Ori­en­tal and African Stud­ies (SOAS) in Lon­don. He joined CeMIS as its found­ing direc­tor in 2009.

Ravi Ahu­ja favours research-ori­ent­ed modes of teach­ing. CeMIS’s Mod­ern Indi­an His­to­ry research group offers a broad spec­trum of cours­es that reflects the vivid and diverse his­to­ri­og­ra­phy on South Asian soci­eties. Apart from his­tor­i­cal sur­vey cours­es for first-year under­grad­u­ate stu­dents, our teach­ing cov­ers themes of social and eco­nom­ic his­to­ry like urban his­to­ry, gen­der his­to­ry, the his­to­ry of tech­nol­o­gy and med­i­cine, the his­to­ry of social move­ments or the social his­to­ry of war. 

CeMIS’s Mod­ern Indi­an His­to­ry sec­tion is high­ly research active with a strong empha­sis on train­ing research stu­dents. In order to pro­vide a fer­tile research envi­ron­ment and facil­i­tate inten­sive com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the mem­bers of the research group, the ‘band­width’ of our research has been defined as com­pris­ing main­ly the fol­low­ing major themes:

  • Labour his­to­ry and his­to­ry of work
  • His­to­ry of capital(ism)
  • His­to­ry of eco­nom­ic and social policy
  • Social his­to­ry of indus­tri­al (urban as well as rur­al) space
  • His­to­ry of infrastructure

Curriculum Vitae

2007 Habil­i­ta­tion, Human­i­ties Fac­ul­ty, Uni­ver­si­ty of Han­nover; dis­ser­ta­tion: ‘Path­ways of Empire. Cir­cu­la­tion, “Pub­lic Works” and Social Space in Colo­nial Oris­sa (c. 1780–1914)’; venia leg­en­di for Mod­ern History.

1998 ‘Grund­ständi­ge Pro­mo­tion’ (DPhil with­out pre­ced­ing M.A.), Human­i­ties Fac­ul­ty, Uni­ver­si­ty of Hei­del­berg; magna cum laude; dis­ser­ta­tion: ‘Die Erzeu­gung kolo­nialer Staatlichkeit und das Prob­lem der Arbeit. Eine Studie zur Sozialgeschichte der Stadt Madras und ihres Hin­ter­lan­des zwis­chen 1750 und 1800’ [The mak­ing of a colo­nial state and the prob­lem of labour. A study of the social his­to­ry of Madras City and its hin­ter­land, c. 1750–1800].

1991 — 1998 South Asian His­to­ry, Euro­pean His­to­ry and Indol­o­gy at Hei­del­berg Uni­ver­si­ty (1991–1993; 1995–1998) and School of Ori­en­tal and African Stud­ies, Lon­don (1993–1995)

University Education

2007 Habil­i­ta­tion, Human­i­ties Fac­ul­ty, Uni­ver­si­ty of Han­nover; dis­ser­ta­tion: ‘Path­ways of Empire. Cir­cu­la­tion, “Pub­lic Works” and Social Space in Colo­nial Oris­sa (c. 1780–1914)’; venia leg­en­di for Mod­ern History.

1998 ‘Grund­ständi­ge Pro­mo­tion’ (DPhil with­out pre­ced­ing M.A.), Human­i­ties Fac­ul­ty, Uni­ver­si­ty of Hei­del­berg; magna cum laude; dis­ser­ta­tion: ‘Die Erzeu­gung kolo­nialer Staatlichkeit und das Prob­lem der Arbeit. Eine Studie zur Sozialgeschichte der Stadt Madras und ihres Hin­ter­lan­des zwis­chen 1750 und 1800’ [The mak­ing of a colo­nial state and the prob­lem of labour. A study of the social his­to­ry of Madras City and its hin­ter­land, c. 1750–1800].

1991 — 1998 South Asian His­to­ry, Euro­pean His­to­ry and Indol­o­gy at Hei­del­berg Uni­ver­si­ty (1991–1993; 1995–1998) and School of Ori­en­tal and African Stud­ies, Lon­don (1993–1995)

Occupational Career

2010 — 2012 Direc­tor, Cen­tre for Mod­ern Indi­an Stud­ies, Uni­ver­si­ty of Göttingen

2009 Pro­fes­sor of Mod­ern Indi­an His­to­ry, Uni­ver­si­ty of Göttingen

2009 Offered the Pro­fes­sor­ship of Cul­ture and Soci­ety of Mod­ern South Asia at Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­ty, Berlin (declined)

2008 — 2009 Chair, Cen­tre of South Asian Stud­ies, School of Ori­en­tal and African Stud­ies, London

2007 — 2009 Pro­fes­sor of Mod­ern South Asian His­to­ry, School of Ori­en­tal and African Stud­ies, London

2006 — 2007 Senior Research Fel­low, Cen­tre for Mod­ern Ori­en­tal Stud­ies, Berlin. Research pro­gramme ‘World Wars and World Views: Ara­bic and Indi­an War Expe­ri­ences between Self-willed Appro­pri­a­tion and Pro­pa­gan­da’, project on Indi­an pris­on­ers of war in Ger­many dur­ing World War I.

2002 — 2006 ‘Wis­senschaftlich­er Assis­tent’ (Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor), Depart­ment of His­to­ry, South Asia Insti­tute, Uni­ver­si­ty of Heidelberg

2001 — 2002 Senior Research Fel­low, Cen­tre for Mod­ern Ori­en­tal Stud­ies, Berlin. Research pro­gramme ‘The Indi­an Ocean ? spaces and move­ments’, project on ‘mar­itime work cul­ture and British colo­nial­ism in the Indi­an Ocean’.

1999 — 2001 Senior Research Fel­low, Insti­tute for African and Asian Stud­ies, Hum­boldt Uni­ver­si­ty, Berlin. Project on ‘path­ways of pow­er: the social his­to­ry of trans­port in colo­nial Oris­sa’ as part of the Ger­man Research Council’s Oris­sa Research Programme

1998 — 1999 Research Assis­tant, Depart­ment of His­to­ry, South Asia Insti­tute, Uni­ver­si­ty of Heidelberg

1991 — 1998 Uni­ver­si­ty edu­ca­tion (see above)

1989 — 1991 Type­set­ter, Eschborn (Ger­many)

1985 — 1989 Youth work, Frankfurt/Main

1980 — 1985 Voca­tion­al train­ing and employ­ment as type­set­ter, Frankfurt/Main

1979 Abitur (uni­ver­si­ty entrance diplo­ma), Eich­wald Gym­na­si­um, Schwal­bach a. Ts. (West Germany)

Organisation of Conferences, Workshops, Panels and Summer Schools

Inter­na­tion­al Sum­mer Acad­e­my ‘Work­ing Lives in Glob­al His­to­ry’ (in co-oper­a­tion with IGK Work and Human Life­cy­cle in Glob­al His­to­ry [Hum­boldt Uni­ver­si­ty Berlin] 

V. V. Giri Nation­al Labour Insti­tute [NOIDA/Delhi, India] and Asso­ci­a­tion of Indi­an Labour His­to­ri­ans), NOIDA, 2–9 Octo­ber 2011.

Inter­na­tion­al Work­shop ‘The Pol­i­tics of Pover­ty and the Pol­i­tics of the Poor in Mod­ern India’, Göt­tin­gen, 6–8 July 2011.

Inter­na­tion­al Work­shop ‘Space, Cap­i­tal and Social His­to­ry in Mod­ern South Asia’, Cen­tre for Mod­ern Indi­an Stud­ies, Göt­tin­gen, 24–26 June 2010.

Inter­na­tion­al Work­shop ‘South Asian Expe­ri­ences of the World Wars: New Evi­dence and New Approach­es’, Ger­man His­tor­i­cal Insti­tute, Lon­don, 26 May 2009 (with Indra Sen­gup­ta; joint­ly orga­nized by SOAS, Ger­man His­tor­i­cal Insti­tute and Cen­tre for Mod­ern Ori­en­tal Studies).

Inter­na­tion­al Work­shop ‘The World in World Wars. Expe­ri­ences, Per­cep­tions and Per­spec­tives from the South’, Cen­tre for Mod­ern Ori­en­tal Stud­ies, Berlin, 7–9 June 2007 (with K. Bromber, D. Hamza, K. Lange und H. Liebau).

Pan­el ‘Empires, Nation­alisms and the Con­tain­ment of Labour in South Asia: His­tor­i­cal and Con­tem­po­rary Issues’, 18th Euro­pean Con­fer­ence on Mod­ern South Asian Stud­ies, Lund, 6–9 July 2004 (with Ben Zachariah).

Inter­na­tion­al Work­shop ‘Explor­ing Indi­an Ocean Cul­tures and His­to­ries’, St. Cross Col­lege, Uni­ver­si­ty of Oxford, 26 April 2003 (with J.-G. Deutsch et al.)

Pan­el ‘South Asian Soci­ety, British Colo­nial­ism and the Emer­gence of “Sub­al­tern Net­works” in the Indi­an Ocean Region’, 17th Euro­pean Con­fer­ence on Mod­ern South Asian Stud­ies, Hei­del­berg, 9–14 Sep­tem­ber 2002 (with H. Fischer-Tiné)

Pan­el ‘Colo­nial­ism as Civ­i­liz­ing Mis­sion ? The Case of British India’, Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence of Asian Stud­ies (ICAS), Berlin, 9–12 August 2001 (with H. Fischer-Tiné).

Work­shop ‘Per­spec­tives on the Indi­an Ocean’, Zen­trum Mod­en­er Ori­ent, Berlin, 14- 16 July 2000 (with J.-G. Deutsch et al.).

External Roles and Memberships

Ger­man His­tor­i­cal Insti­tute, Lon­don, advi­so­ry board mem­ber (2011-).

Jour­nal of Glob­al His­to­ry; edi­to­r­i­al board (2010-).

Inter­na­tion­al Review of Social His­to­ry; edi­to­r­i­al board (2009-).

Forum Transna­tionale Stu­di­en, Berlin, advi­so­ry board mem­ber (2009-) Euro­pean Asso­ci­a­tion of South Asian Studies.

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Asienkunde Fre­un­deskreis des Zen­trums Mod­ern­er Orient

Asso­ci­a­tion of Indi­an Labour His­to­ri­ans; life member

Enzyk­lopädie der Neuzeit, Stuttgart: J. B. Met­zler, 2005–2012 (co-edi­tor in the area ‘glob­al inter­ac­tion’ for South Asia) [Ency­clopae­dia of Mod­ern History].

Exter­nal review­er for sev­er­al ref­er­eed jour­nals (Mod­ern Asian Stud­ies, South Asia, Jour­nal of the Social and Eco­nom­ic His­to­ry of the Ori­ent) and fund­ing agen­cies (Ger­man Research Council/DFG, Volk­swa­gen­S­tiftung, Schweiz­er Nationalfonds).

Exter­nal PhD exam­in­er for sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ties (Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­ty Berlin, Jacobs Uni­ver­si­ty Bre­men, Gold­smiths Col­lege [Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don], School of Ori­en­tal and African Stud­ies [Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don], Jawa­har­lal Nehru Uni­ver­si­ty [New Del­hi], Uni­ver­si­ty of Delhi).

Publications