South Asian Historian Receives Tenure

Filling a position that has remained open for over two decades, the history department has hired Sugata Bose, a leader in the field of South Asian studies, to the tenured Gardiner Chair in Oceanic History and Affairs starting next fall.

Bose, currently a professor of history at Tufts University, was selected to address the lack of South Asian history in the department's curriculum.

"We've never taught South Asian history, as remarkable and stunning as it seems," said William C. Kirby, Geisinger professor of history, who chaired the department when it began to recruit Bose.

"[South Asian studies] became a large hole with a large amount of undergraduate interest," he said.

Bose said that he would teach two courses next year: a conference course on South Asian history and a lecture that would be either an upper-level history department course or a Core class.

The departmental course would be a survey of South Asian history, while the Core class would "focus on the making and multiple meanings of modernity with reference to South Asia. As a Core, I would have to make it more appealing to non-concentrators."

Bose has written on peasant history, nationalism, international economic history and colonial empires. Although his appointment is primarily as a South Asian historian, Kirby said that Bose's variety of interests was one of his greatest strengths as a candidate for the post.

"He crosses bridges between economic, cultural and literary history," he said. "The breadth of his scholarship will, I hope, give him the capacity to lead Harvard into this broad new area of South Asian history, where he is one of the leaders in the field."

"Harvard's history department is very strong on the Middle East, China, Japan and Southeast Asia," Bose said. "I will provide a connection between those areas...I'm interested in breaking out of the constraints of area studies and looking at comparisons and connections."

Although Bose had been a leader in Tufts' strong South Asian studies program, he said that he did not hesitate to accept Harvard's offer.

"It wasn't a difficult decision. It was an honor which I wanted to accept," he said.

Bose's latest book, "The Indian Ocean Rim: an Inter-regional Arena in the Colonial Era, c. 1850-1950," will be published next year.

--Staff writer Daniel K. Rosenheck can be reached at rosenhec@fas.harvard.edu.