Mou Banerjee

Biography

I received my Ph.D. from the Dept. of History at Harvard in 2018. My first book, “The Disinherited: Christianity and Conversion in Colonial India, 1813-1907” is forthcoming from Harvard University Press. The book-project is an intellectual and political history of the creation of the Indian political self – a self that emerged through an often-oppositional relationship with evangelical Christianity and the apologetic debates arising out of such engagements.

My research was funded by the award of the 2013 SSRC-IDRF dissertation research fellowship which enabled me to conduct research at multiple archives in the UK, in India and in Bangladesh. My dissertation received the Harold K. Gross award , which is granted annually by the faculty of the History Department at Harvard to the graduate student whose dissertation ‘gave greatest promise of a distinguished career of historical research.”

My second book, under contract with Juggernaut Press, India, is an intellectual history of the life and times of the pioneering Indian social reformer Raja Rammohan Roy.

My research interests include the religion and politics in India, the history of gender, hunger and food politics, and the history of borders and immigration in colonial South Asia. Prior to my appointment at UW-Madison, I was College fellow at the Department of South Asian Studies at Harvard in 2018 and Assistant Professor of History at Clemson University in 2018-19.

Professor Banerjee is not currently accepting incoming graduate students for academic year 2025-26.

Education

Ph.D.; in History: Harvard University, 2018
A.M.; in History: Harvard University, 2013
M.A.; in English: Jadavpur University, 2006
B.A.; (Hons) in English: Jadavpur University, 2004

Selected Publications

• “The Tale of the Tailor: Munshi Mohammad Meherullah and Muslim- Christian Apologetics in Bengal, 1885–1907.” South Asian Studies (2017), 33:2, 122-136.
• “They all belong to the school of Adam Smith”: The dissemination of Adam Smith’s ideas in Calcutta in the nineteenth century. Cambridge: Harvard University; 2015
• “Christ in the Paintings of Jamini Ray.” Literature and Criticism. 2008;6 (1)
• “Milton: Parrhesiastes/Prophet.” The Atlantic Critical Review. 2008;7 (3)

Advisor To

• Amrita Chowdhury (Asian Languages & Cultures)
• Shatrunjay Mall
• Tyler A. Lehrer
• Yue Qiu
• Srotaswini Bhowmick

History Courses

• History 142 – History of South Asia to the Present
• History 200 – Historical Studies: Gandhi, King, Mandela: Non-Violence in the World – Syllabus 2022 (pdf)
• History 200 – Historical Studies: A Global History of Non-Violence – Syllabus 2020 (pdf)
• History 450 – The Making of Modern South Asia
• History 600 – Advanced Seminar in History: Gandhi, King, Mandela: Non-Violence in the World – Syllabus 2021 (pdf)
• History 600 – Advanced Seminar in History: A Global History of Non-Violence – Syllabus 2020 (pdf)
• History 790 – Empire and Colonialism in South Asia – Syllabus 2022 (pdf)