Five more days for #ISASAWP2026 the first @isanet.bsky.social in South Asia. Looking forward to three days of paper presentations, productive discussions, & catching up with and meeting colleagues. Follow this space for highlights of the conference!
Kalathmika Natarajan
@kalathmika.bsky.social
Historian of modern South Asia at Exeter. Diplomatic history/IR at the intersections of migration, caste, and indenture.
What is the word one uses to describe a person who habitually says the opposite of what is true...? Our VC: Exeter has one of the largest humanities and social science depts and will continue to do so. Here is a helpful chart for where it is & what will happen. #DefendExeterUni @exeter.ac.uk
"A Tribute to My Martyr Teachers" on the historians and intellectuals massacred by Pakistani Army in Dhaka in 1971
A Tribute to My Martyr Teachers
The Pakistani occupation army wrote a black chapter in the history of our War of Liberation on the 14th-15th December, 1971 by killing intellectuals in Dhaka city in a planned way.
thedailystar.net
In July 1983, anti-Tamil pogroms engulfed Sri Lanka, killing and displacing Tamils and destroying homes and businesses. For many Tamil families, Black July transformed what it meant to call Sri Lanka home. https://www.himalmag.com/shakthidharan-sri-lanka-conflict-tamil-history-memoir/
Glad to share this excerpt from my book, featured on @scroll.in During a time when the Exeter management has targeted historical research and the humanities and social sciences more broadly, it matters so much to see public engagement with our work. Do read and share! scroll.in/article/1094...
This book uncovers how indentured labourers forged independent India’s foreign relations
An excerpt from the Introduction to ‘Coolie Migrants, Indian Diplomacy: Caste, Class and Indenture Abroad, 1914-67’, by Kalathmika Natarajan.
scroll.in
Thanks to my lovely colleagues at Exeter for this wonderful photographic tour around the world in fabulous archives - reminders of the joys of doing history during an otherwise grim time.
Dr Laura Sangha@lsangha.bsky.social · 2w agoThings are so bad I joined WhatsApp (still don't have a smartphone though, no). In amongst the serious stuff in our 'at risk' chat are some Very Lovely Things. For instance, my colleague who works on the Italian Renaissance shared this photo of the Archivio di Stato di Roma, where she currently is:
Scholars from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka & beyond stand in solidarity with 500 colleagues at Exeter facing potential redundancy - deeply concerned about the damage these cuts would do to the scholarship & international partnerships that have taken years to build. #DefendExeterUni shorturl.at/sNnAb
Statement of Solidarity from South Asian Scholars against redundancies at Exeter
To add your signature to this letter, please fill out the signatory form at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdXrQ3bi3TADQwObWC34MnYPCUzXNGg8gRFD7kzaNqGhIz20g/viewform?usp=publish-editor. From...
docs.google.com
📣📣Calling all Falmouth and Exeter UCU members! Our Fal-Ex trade union day of action is tomorrow! Members and colleagues in the morning in the Woodlane campus, and all interested members of the public in the afternoon. Let’s fight for jobs and universities in Cornwall!
Something deeply troubling & shocking is happening at Exeter University*, where a mass cull of staff is planned, even though it's in surplus. No good justifications given. @jamesgdyke.info provides the details: www.technosphere.earth/the-bonfire-... *Disclosure: I have a Visiting Fellowship here. +🧵
The bonfire of the humanities
150 academic posts at the University of Exeter are to be cut, most in the humanities but also in social sciences, engineering and environmental sciences
technosphere.earth
We are ‘at risk’. Not just me, not just my wonderful colleagues in History, and not just the world-class community of teachers and researchers across the University of Exeter, but all of us who value the humanities. You can support us here: c.org/2cSZVFyhNF #defendexeteruni
Sign the Petition
Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter
c.org
In January, lovely colleagues at Exeter organised a book launch for my monograph - a beautiful event that represented the best kind of collegiality and support. 6 months later, we have been served risk of redundancy notices along with 500 staff mostly in Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences. 1/n
'What is perhaps remarkable about the Exeter cuts is that they are targeted at some of the university’s most successful departments, many of which turn over a profit even after they have made enormous and increasing contributions to the central university budget.' Read, rage and weep.
The Crisis in Britain’s Universities
The cuts that have been proposed at the University of Exeter demonstrates the crisis of purpose in Britain’s universities. Should not universities also be places to prepare for "eternal dwellings"?
johnheathershaw.substack.com
This year, Exeter University’s vice-chancellor has received a pay rise (bringing the total salary to nearly 400,000 GBP) despite hundreds of staff leaving the university under cost-cutting measures. What an absolute shame. thetab.com/2026/02/12/e...
Exeter University's vice-chancellor received £3000 pay rise despite hundreds of jobs cut
The university paid over £10,000 in compensation for staff cuts
thetab.com
🚨 PLEASE SHARE WIDELY 🚨 If you are an Exeter alumnus, and wish to express your horror at the proposed cuts to the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, please sign the Google Doc petition below. Not an alumnus? You can still help by signing the Exeter UCU petition at c.org/msXfsb2g5b 🗃️
Alumni petition against the cuts to the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Any Exeter alumni who wish for their names to be added to the petition below should please complete the form at this link: https://forms.gle/SpdYvmmsCaJbmZft6. If you are not an alumnus, but still wis...
docs.google.com
Along with almost all of my colleagues in history, this afternoon I got an email telling me that I am at risk of redundancy. It looks like the University of Exeter sent this email to the vast majority of people in Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty. Bit hard to breath right now.
Ben Phillips@benphillips1989.bsky.social · last mo.A statement from Exeter UCU branch @ucu.org.uk - please share far and wide.
A statement from Exeter UCU branch @ucu.org.uk - please share far and wide.
BANGLADESH LABOUR HISTORY · 1881 — 2026 Fight for Justice 🗃️
Fight for Justice — Bangladesh Labour History 1881–2026
A digital journey through 145 years of labour struggle, resilience, and progress in Bangladesh — from colonial mills to today's garment factories.
campaign.thedailystar.net
What do frictions in the founding story of a missionary women's college in colonial India reveal about Indian women's struggles for education and internationalism? Sneha Krishnan unpacks the history of the Women's Christian College in Madras.
An Unreliable Archive of Internationalism
What do frictions in the founding story of a missionary women's college reveal about Indian women's struggles for education and internationalism? Sneha Krishnan unpacks the history of the Women's Christian College in colonial India.
historyworkshop.org.uk
My book Coolie Migrants, Indian Diplomacy is available online now through @academic.oup.com. If you have institutional/library access to Oxford Scholarship Online, do check this out! If you're interested in reviewing the book & would like a copy, feel free to get in touch! doi.org/10.1093/oso/...
Coolie Migrants, Indian Diplomacy: Caste, Class and Indenture Abroad, 1914-67
Abstract. Over the centuries, millions of migrant laborers sailed from the Indian subcontinent, across the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean, to shape what is
doi.org
Check this out! The introduction to a series that will feature some truly brilliant pieces from @smidbob.bsky.social @carolienstolte.bsky.social @sulinlewis.bsky.social @snehakrishnan.bsky.social and more!
History Workshop@historyworkshop.org.uk · 3mo agoToday, we launch a new featured series called Rethinking Internationalisms. In this introductory article, Ria Kapoor, Jessica Reinisch, Margot Tudor and Daniel Laqua ask, how can marginalised stories of internationalism be recovered?
Please do read my recently published article in Past and Present on caste, and indentured Indian sanitary workers on ships and in colonial South Africa.
Past and Present@pastpresentsoc.bsky.social · 3mo agoNew on advance access: "Indentured Indian workers and the politics of race, caste, and sanitation at sea and in colonial South Africa, c.1860–1911" by Pritam Singh (@lsehy.bsky.social) #OpenAccess doi.org/10.1093/past...
For anyone with a digital legal history project: please consider nominating it for the ASLH's 2026 Mary L. Dudziak Digital Legal History Prize. Submissions are due June 1, 2026. Full details here: aslh.net/award/mary-l... #legalhistory
made a list of my favourite books about the politics of statues, all of which informed the writing of 'The Psychic Lives of Statues' bookdna.com/best-books/t...
Rahul Rao's favorite books about the politics of controversial statues
Rahul Rao wrote The Psychic Lives of Statues. These are their favorite books on the politics of controversial statues.
bookdna.com
What did our forebears do during the Nazi era? A subject long shrouded in silence in German families. Now, the US National Archives has made millions of NSDAP membership cards available online. amp.dw.com/en/were-gran...
Were Grandma and Grandpa Nazis?
What did our forebears do during the Nazi era? A subject long shrouded in silence in German families. Now, the US National Archives has made millions of NSDAP membership cards available online.
amp.dw.com
the paperback edition of ‘The Psychic Lives of Statues’ is out in June 2026, with a new preface describing how India anticipated the fascination that authoritarian strongmen and tech bros have with immortalizing their ideals and idols in statues preorder here: www.plutobooks.com/product/the-...
Texas' only licensed Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu legal interpreter is now languishing in a Raymondville detention center. She’s lived in America for 35 years: www.texasobserver.org/immigration-...
Longtime Immigration Court Interpreter Arrested by ICE at South Texas Airport
The state’s only licensed Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu legal interpreter is now languishing in a Raymondville detention center. She’s lived in America for 35 years.
texasobserver.org
Excited to see this new journal dedicated to the study of the Mughal Empire! escholarship.org/uc/journalof...
Aims and Scope
The Journal of Mughal Studies, the first peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to this field, provides a venue for original researched scholarship on the diverse historical worlds connected to the Mughal Empire and its wider context. The journal takes a broad view of what is considered Mughal, welcoming contributions across the history, culture, politics, economy, art, architecture, and literature of the Mughal world, and embracing a wider temporal and geographical scope when these offer significant contributions to the field. Rather than restricting inquiry to the institutions of imperial rule or to a narrow chronological frame, it welcomes research that highlights the history of the diverse populations that lived under imperial rule and of communities whose histories intersected with or unfolded alongside imperial formations. Contributions drawing on archaeology, epigraphy, material culture, vernacular archives, and other non-traditional or interdisciplinary sources are especially welcome, as are studies attentive to subaltern actors, everyday practices, and the circulation of knowledge, goods, and people across regions. The journal also particularly welcomes research and analysis of museum and library collections, and reviews of public-facing outputs such as exhibitions, digital humanities projects, and public programs.
escholarship.org
My astonishingly brilliant and generous friend @mitrasharafi.bsky.social's magisterial second monograph, "The fear of the False" has been published from @cornellupress.bsky.social. And it is open access. RUN and READ: library.oapen.org/handle/20.50...
Fear of the False
library.oapen.org
We have a zine! Over the past year, I've been working w/ Pusat Sejarah Rakyat and the International Institute of Social History to bring together organisations around Southeast Asia working on archiving and disseminating "people's histories" and the histories of social movements in the region. 1/4