‘One of the oldest urban centres on the planet’: Gaza’s rich history in ruins. My @guardian piece on the erasure of Gaza's past. As we mourn incalculable human losses, learning about its past can help us better understand the present www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

We are awarding our President's Medal to 'In Our Time' as it has done so much to showcase humanities & social sciences. We'd decided this before the news of Melvyn Bragg stepping down, but glad we got our timing right & had a chance to celebrate with him! www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/renowne...

“Historic women artists are often treated as exceptional cases, one-offs, if you will, but in this exhibition, the sheer bounty of women’s work across visual culture offers a surprising alternative framework for thinking about women’s contributions.” news.artnet.com/art-world/jo...

Not unhappy to be mentioned in this article, but when did it become the norm to grab something off of social media rather than conduct an actual interview? I know far more about this history than what fits in a couple of BlueSky posts. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

South Asian Britain: Connecting Histories showcases the long presence of South Asians in Britain, from the establishment of Hindoostane Coffee House in 1810 to the Gate Gourmet industrial dispute in 2005. southasianbritain.org/events/ @uobartsmatter.bsky.social @BL_Learning @QMULsed

'Now, Alexandra Wilson’s new book, Someone Else’s Music, unpicks the myth that opera is alien to the working class. For much of the past century, Wilson shows, opera was a hugely important thread in working-class lives.'

Photographers and storytellers Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky document cumbia music in Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina and the United States. n.pr/4mY0owk

'When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,' the Norwegian Nobel Committee said as it announced Maria Corina Machado as the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize

Save 30% on #NewBook "Decolonizing Afghanistan," edited by @wazhmah.bsky.social and Robert D. Crews, which marks a decolonial turn in #Afghanistan and #AmericanStudies. buff.ly/dnOAAgT

Nathan Tabor, City of Lyrics Ordinary Poets and Islamicate Popular Culture in Early Modern Delhi uncpress.org/978146969022...

Genauso wie man den deutschen (deutschsprachigen) Sonderweg der Habilitation endlich aufgeben sollte, sollte man die Ausbeutung der Privatdozent*innen durch unentgeltliche Titellehre sein lassen. Sie ist ein Instrument der sozialen Auslese. Ich habe unterschrieben. Unterschreib Du auch!

Macron remarks are notable- some quotes: "We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies."

out today from @ucpress.bsky.social comes with words and a map. can be displayed and/or read.

“The Lebanese label produced hundreds, if not thousands, of recordings in Berlin up until the eve of World War II.” Anna-Theresa Bachmann and Hannah El-Hitami explore the history of Baidaphon for @newlinesmag.bsky.social

"Das „Klima der Vorsicht“ herrscht längst in der Breite des Systems." Sehr guter und fairer Beitrag von Gerald Wagner in der @faznet.bsky.social zu unserer Studie über die Lage in der deutschen Nahost-Wissenschaft seit dem 7. Oktober www.faz.net/aktuell/karr...

CFP: International Conference New Perspectives on South-Asian and Middle Eastern Connections in the 20th Century 9-10 May 2026 Institut français d’archéologie orientale (Ifao) in collaboration with Orient-Institut Beirut Antoinette Ferrand (Ifao) & Simon Conrad (OIB)

Navina Haidar and Marika Sardar's 2015 MET exhibition catalog "Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700: Opulence and Fantasy" is now available for free online

'The Netherlands’ caretaker government, which will remain in place under outgoing prime minister Dick Schoof until October’s general election, announced this week that universities’ 2026 compensation for inflation will be cut by up to €25 million (£21.7 million).' 1/2

Neues vom Wissenschaftsstandort #Berlin: Etatkürzungen, Reduktion der Studienplätze & Stellensperren. Ach je…

Schlimmste Flut in Pakistan seit 1988, schlimmste Waldbrände in Spanien und Portugal. Die Klimakrise ist da, und sie wird noch schlimmer werden. Wir aber tun so, als sei die Frage nach Wurst- und Fleischessen oder Gendersternchen das größte Problem. /2 www.faz.net/aktuell/gese...

My op-ed in the @chicagomaroon.bsky.social on the University of Chicago’s appalling plans to gut the humanities and possibly eliminate the South Asian studies department chicagomaroon.com/48353/viewpo...

One crucial factor for the decline is the flight of the moneyed Hindu and Sikh elite during Partition, says Kabir Altaf, researching on the topic. These landed & merchant families had formed the core patronage base for classical music in Pakistan. scroll.in/magazine/108... By Malini Nair

‘In the fourth year of the invasion, I don’t know how to write about the shelling of my home town. Photos of destroyed buildings on social media no longer have the power to shock. The subject matter and angles of the photos have become ordinary.’ www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I am sad to learn of the passing of Brinkley Messick, a great scholar and ethnographer, a dear colleague with whom I worked very closely with for more than a decade. Here he is at a panel celebrating his wonderful book *Shari'a Scripts: A Historical Anthropology* in 2018.

“Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?” www.theguardian.com/football/202...

“Book stores across Kashmir were raided by police today following a ban on 25 books by Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha. Most of these books are written by acclaimed writes and historians on Kashmir. “ www.ndtv.com/india-news/p...

"In the pursuit of a historical fantasy, today’s rulers want to erase the reality that modern India would be unrecognisable without the imprint of the Mughals." scroll.in/article/1085... ✍️Richard Eaton

Columbia: 'an anti-university, a gated security zone with electronic entry controls, a place of fear and loathing, where faculty and students are told from on high what they can teach and say, under penalty of severe sanctions.' (Rashid Khalidi)

Kulturstaatsminister Weimer hat angekündigt, Kolonialismus nicht in das Gedenkstättenkonzept des Bundes aufzunehmen, da es den Holocaust relativiere. Das ist falsch und erfüllt AfD-Positionen. Darüber uvm habe ich mit den DLF gesprochen. 🎤👇 www.deutschlandfunk.de/erinnerungsp...

Once again @nesrinemalik.bsky.social with simple moral clarity cutting through the noise. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I said what I said: "Professors are considering leaving Columbia because of the settlement, said Jacoby and Dixon-Román. 'It’s very demoralizing to teach in a university that’s, from my perspective, acceding to authoritarian demands,' Jacoby said." www.chronicle.com/article/colu...

Historian friends, all who like reading history, and connoisseurs of writing, research, and thought--I know it's hard to think about the past when the present is so ghastly, but you should do yourselves a favor and read Miranda Spieler's AMAZING second book www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

Born #onthisday in Berlin in 1892, the philosopher, literary critic, and essayist Walter Benjamin. Read an essay by Anca Pusca on the relevance of Benjamin’s oeuvre in a digital age, and the implications of his work entering the public domain. publicdomainreview.org/essay/o... #otd

Darjeeling tea is world-famous — but the workers who make it are underpaid, overworked, and overlooked. As the industry faces climate change and crisis, it's the workers who bear the brunt. scroll.in/article/1084... Nolina Minj reports

Very important piece on how our right wing press & think tanks are creating the space for the most extreme, far right policies, with remorseless scapegoating of immigrants & Muslims: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

My remembrance of my teacher, C.M. Naim

Narendra Pachkhédé on C.M. Naim who "refused both the nostalgia of the diaspora and the sentimentality of cultural nationalism. His was a critical love – tender, exacting, and utterly unsentimental."

I wrote a brief 'Life Stories' text about the Indian anticolonial activist A. C. N. Nambiar and his activities in 1920s Berlin for Dekoloniale. The beautifully crafted interactive map is an exciting way to tell this story. www.dekoloniale.de/en/map?kind=...

Indira Gandhi declared a national Emergency on June 25 in 1975. scroll.in/reel/1083796/ The Union government said the day will be marked as “Samvidhan Hatya Diwas” . Nandini Ramnath writes about how it's ironic, given the sustained attacks on the freedom of expression on its watch.

Excited to see the website is now live for my forthcoming book, The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism (PUP, March 2026) press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

‘Academia normalizes poverty as a “rite of passage.” It’s not character-building—it’s exclusionary. We need to reject this culture, fund our people, and prioritize equity at every career stage.’

I discussed how climate change is increasing the occurrence of persistent summer weather extremes like the "heat domes" currently impacting the U.S. and Europe this morning on #BBCNews: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYe4...

5. Wars are easy to start and hard to stop

NEW: Every spring in Syria, the ancient damask rose blooms. It has endured war, the Assad regime’s exploitation and now drought, reports Paloma de Dinechin, with photos by Arthur Larie, for @newlinesmag.bsky.social newlinesmag.com/spotlight/th...

Weather fluctuations over three years have disrupted rose and jasmine harvests in Kannauj, India's perfume capital. In this week's #EcoIndia, we discuss how Kannauj's famous perfume industry can survive the effects of climate change. #Watch⤵ scroll.in/video/108329...

Is environmentalism in India an import from the West? www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGpb... In an interview with Scroll Editor Naresh Fernandes on #WorldEnvironmentDay, Ramachandra Guha explains why India would be an environmental disaster zone even if the crisis of climate change did not exist. #Watch⤵️

Super excited to see this strong pre-release review of my new book by Publishers Weekly. "Weaving a staggering amount of history into a propulsive narrative that recasts the 20th century as a long struggle for liberation, this is a towering achievement." www.publishersweekly.com/9781324092452

Farewell to historian Pierre Nora (1931-2025), whose « major contribution to historiography was the concept of “lieux de mémoire” (“sites of memory”), a term he coined to describe elements of the past that a community chooses to remember and which become symbolic of a shared identity. »

Sad news. Rest in peace, Valmik Thapar. Condolences to his family & friends.