Sudipta Kaviraj

Sudipta Kaviraj
Giving the lecture "The Search for Paradise" at UC Berkeley in 2024
Born1945 (age 79–80)
Education
OccupationAcademic
EmployerColumbia University

Sudipta Kaviraj (born 1945) is a distinguished scholar specializing in the domains of South Asian Politics and Intellectual History, frequently aligned with the disciplines of Postcolonial and Subaltern Studies.[1][2][3] Presently, he holds a faculty position at Columbia University within the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies.[4]

Education

Kaviraj pursued his academic endeavors in political science at the esteemed Presidency College of the University of Calcutta.[5] Subsequently, he attained his doctoral degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, thereby solidifying his scholarly foundation in the field.[6] This early academic trajectory underscores his commitment to rigorous intellectual inquiry and his notable contributions to the discipline of political science.

Career

As a distinguished academician, he holds the position of Professor specializing in South Asian Politics and South Asian Intellectual History. Notably, he has served as the former department chair of the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department at Columbia University. Prior to his tenure at Columbia, he held the role of Professor in Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Furthermore, he has demonstrated his scholarly expertise as an Associate Professor of Political Science at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and as a Visiting Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford.[7]

Additionally, his intellectual influence is evident in his founding membership within the Subaltern Studies Collective, a significant scholarly initiative with profound implications for the academic discourse in the field.

Opinions

  • The Enchantment of Democracy and India" (Permanent Black 2011)

The history of modern India tells us a complex, surprising, captivating, and yet unconcluded story of freedom. It is appropriate to express a Tocquevillesque astonishment at this historical phenomenon. If we look from age to age, from the earliest antiquity to the present day, we can agree with Tocqueville that nothing like this has ever happened before. We have not yet seen the end of this unprecedented historical process… For, the eventual shape of the destination of this process might be unclear, but the movement towards a greater expansion of freedom is irreversible.[8]

Selected publications

  • The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of Nationalist Discourse in India, 1993, ISBN 0-19-564585-5
  • Politics in India, Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-19-564873-0
  • Civil Society: History and Possibilities, Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-521-63344-3
  • "Imaginary Institutions of India", Permanent Black, 2010, ISBN 81-7824-357-1

References

  1. ^ "Sudipta Kaviraj". www.csds.in. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
  2. ^ Chowdhury, Arnab Roy (2020). "Postcolonial Turns in Indian Political Theorising: The Contributions and Imaginaries of Sudipta Kaviraj". Indian Anthropologist. 50 (1/2): 93–109. ISSN 0970-0927.
  3. ^ ""The Indian Constitution is a remarkable achievement of anti-colonial thought." - Prof. Sudipta Kaviraj, while delivering the M.K. Nambyar Annual Lecture 2023". National Law School of India University. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
  4. ^ "Sudipta Kaviraj Biography". Columbia University.
  5. ^ "History of the Department". Presidency University.
  6. ^ "Archives". Jawaharlal Nehru University.
  7. ^ "Sudipta Kaviraj". mayday.leftword.com. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
  8. ^ "From principle to practice". The Hindu. 27 January 2013. Archived from the original on 30 January 2013. Retrieved 15 December 2024.