Rochona Majumdar
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Assistant Professor Ph.D. University of Chicago, 2003 Field Specialties: History of gender, marriage, and family in India; modern Indian cultural and political history, modern Bengal, Indian cinema, postcolonial history and theory.	The University of Chicago 1130 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Fax: (773) 834-3254 Email: r-majumdar@uchicago.edu
Biography: Rochona Majumdar (PhD 2003, University of Chicago) is a historian of nineteenth and twentieth century India. Her Book Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial Bengal, 1870-1956 (Duke University Press, 2009) analyzes the changing configuration of the “joint family” in the context of shifts in the institution of arranged marriage and the marriage market in Bengal. She is a co-editor with Dipesh Chakrabarty and Andrew Sartori of From the Colonial to the Postcolonial: India and Pakistan in Transition, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007. Majumdar is currently completing a book entitled Writing Postcolonial History which analyzes ways in which postcolonial theory has influenced the historian¿s craft. She is also engaged in a longer-term research project on the history of Indian cinema. Majumdar teaches courses on Indian cinema, histories of gender, love, and marriage in South Asia, and modern Indian history. Select Publications:
Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial Bengal. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009.)
Writing Postcolonial History. (book manuscript in preparation, under contract with Hodder Arnold, UK) “Family Values in Transition: Debates around the Hindu Code Bill.” In Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rochona Majumdar, and Andrew Sartori edited. From the Colonial to the Postcolonial: India and Pakistan in Transition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007. pp. 223-240. From the Colonial to the Postcolonial: India and Pakistan in Transition. Editors, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rochona Majumdar & Andrew Sartori, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007. With Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Mangal Pandey: Film and history,” Economic and Political Weekly, Special Issue on 1857, April 15, 2007, pp. 1771-1778. Reprinted in 1857: Essays from Economic and Political Weekly, Orient Longman, 2008, pp. 303-328. “Snehalata's Death: Dowry and Women's Agency in Colonial Bengal,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review, October-December, 41:4, 2004, pp. 443-464. “Looking for Brides and Grooms: Ghataks, Matrimonials and the Marriage Market in Bengal, c. 1875-1940,” Journal of Asian Studies, November, 2004, pp. 911-935. “History of Women's Rights: A Non-Historicist Reading,” Economic and Political Weekly, 30 May 2003, pp. 2130-2134. “‘Self-Sacrifice’ versus ‘Self-Interest’: A Non-Historicist Reading of the History of Women's Rights in India,” in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol. XXII, Nos. 1-2, 2002, pp. 20-36. “Writing the Self: Rassundari Dasi's Amar Jiban”, in The Calcutta Historical Journal, Volumes XIX-XX (combined), pp. 13-34. Review Essays (peer reviewed): “Arguments within Indian Feminism,” Social Hisory, Volume 32, Issue 4, November 2007, pp. 434-445. “Understanding Marriage Dowry,” www.history-compass.com, 2004, no. 2. Journalistic writing: “Sudhu 26 November?,” Anandabazar Patrika, December 14, 2008. “Where Will It End?” Outlook, March 15, 2007, www.outlookindia.com. “In Good Faith.” Outlook, August 17, 2005, www.outlookindia.com. “Thou Shalt Not See.” Outlook, July 8, 2004, www.outlookindia.com. “Give Them Death … Or Life?” Outlook, July 1, 2004, www.outlookindia.com. “Theft of the Nation.” Outlook, March 28, 2004, www.outlookindia.com. “What's In a Name?” Outlook, September 6, 2003, www.outlookindia.com. “Empowerment or Insult.” Outlook, August 29, 2003, www.outlookindia.com. “Shorn of Desire in a Modern World.” The Telegraph, February 10, 2000. Related links: Return to Main Faculty Page .