CSSH Journal

Interesting new paper in @csshjournal.bsky.social about how geological surveys have repeatedly portrayed Afghanistan as a "land of untold mineral wealth" and untapped potential over the last two centuries:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

CSSH highlights new books by Arthur Shiwa Zárate and @bishara.bsky.social!

sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/2025/10...

In our latest Under the Rubric, Along the Imperial Spectrum, Serkan Yolaçan, Ping-Hsiu Alice Lin, and Victoria Fomina discuss what can be learned about #empire by reading their articles together. #History

sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/2025/09...

It is bittersweet to announce the retirement of David Akin, CSSH's extraordinary Managing Editor over the past 25 years. Read his reflections on his tenure with the journal, in conversation with former editor Andrew Shryock, below.

sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/2025/09...

From the abstract: "Rather than a term with clearly identifiable content—“religion,” “nation,” “ethnicity,” or otherwise—millet should be understood instead as auguring the emergence of history as the organizing principle of the late Ottoman politics of difference."

Hanna Safar’s letter to the patriarch, 12 January 1888. The Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal Archive of Dayr al-Zaʿfaran (Dayro d-Kurkmo), Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 05-607/608. Image courtesy of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute.

The latest from CSSH: "The “Millet” Paradigm: On Difference in the Late #Ottoman Empire" by Henry Clements. #History #AcademicSky

doi.org/10.1017/S001...

New at CSSH: Foroogh Farhang's "Death of the Gharīb: A Window towards a Regional Understanding of #Displacement in the #MiddleEast."

"The gharīb can be an analytic tool that allows us to delve deeper into the complexities of belonging, futurity, & rights."

doi.org/10.1017/S001...

Congratulations again to our 2025 Goody Award-winner Elizabeth Chatterjee! CSSH enjoyed the opportunity to chat with Dr. Chatterjee about "Tractors, Truckers, and Class Energetics." Don't miss it! #AcademicSky

sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/2025/08...

Excerpts from a list of sergis Azer Angel purchased from local merchants

Now out on FirstView, Aviv Derri's "The #Ottoman Sarraf, Public Debt, and Usury Laws: Rethinking #Capitalism and Empire beyond Anomalies."

doi.org/10.1017/S001...

Find his essay here:
doi.org/10.1017/S001...

In our latest Behind the Scenes, Marco Garrido describes the act of organization that led to the revelations in his essay, "A Thousand Years of #Corruption: A History of Corruption and Anti-corruption in the #Philippines since 1946."

sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/2025/08...

And quite a few on cattle!

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Shaun Kingsley Malarney's "Defining the True Hunter: Big Game Hunting, Moral Distinction, and Virtuosity in French Colonial Indochina"

doi.org/10.1017/S001...

"Race, Ethnicity, Species, Breed: Totemism and Horse-Breed Classification in America" by John Borneman

doi.org/10.1017/S001...

Chris Pearson's "Between Instinct and Intelligence: Harnessing Police Dog Agency in Early Twentieth-Century Paris"

doi.org/10.1017/S001...

Divya Cherian's "The Owl and the Occult: Popular Politics and Social Liminality in Early Modern South Asia"
doi.org/10.1017/S001...

And if you can't get enough animal essays from Annales, check out a few of ours:

"Alexander and the Elephants" by Thomas R. Trautmann
doi.org/10.1017/S001...

Exciting new double issue on animals!

The cloth cover of Xinjiang Affairs (General Staff Headquarters of the Japanese Ministry of Army, 1943, currently deposited at Waseda University Library).

The latest at CSSH: Peng Hai's ""The Kimono and the Turban” Revisited: Charting #Turkestan in Imperial #Japan’s Muslim Policy." #maps #History

doi.org/10.1017/S001...

Find the award-winning essay here: doi.org/10.1017/S001...

CSSH is excited to announce that Elizabeth Chatterjee is the winner of the 2025 Jack Goody Award! Our judges deemed her essay, Towards an Energetics of Class: Comparing Energy Protests in India and the United States, "comparative social science at its best."

sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/2025/08...

CSSH highlights new books by former journal authors Joseph Masco, Judith Scheele, and @margaretjwiener.bsky.social!

sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/2025/08...

Our latest Under the Rubric, "Submergent Histories," features Mandana Limbert, Jan Jansen, and Jeffrey Kahn discussing how the study of #mobility at #sea can isolate historical processes that, wherever they are found, remain at depth and hard to discern.

sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/2025/07...

"The overarching objective is not just to show the well-known limitations of national archives as a source of historical material, but also to show how actually existing “state archives” go well beyond the remit of official institutions, with notable consequences over our conception of the state."

File no. 2/1–555 from the Institute of Popular Culture, titled “Bills and Ministerial Decrees on the Establishment of the Institute (the Popular University) and its Board of Directors.” The document dates within this file range from 1945 to 1959.

New work by @chihab.bsky.social, "Notes on the Difficulty of Studying State #Archives in #Egypt," is out on FirstView!

doi.org/10.1017/S001...

Frederick Cooper's "Decolonizing #Decolonization" is out on FirstView: "This article poses the question of what work the concept of decolonization can and cannot do." #Russia #Africa #Empire #History

doi.org/10.1017/S001...

In our latest Behind the Scenes, "Runways and Relations," Carla Jones analyzes a series of images to show how the public #catwalk operates as a platform for political communication in #Indonesia. Don't miss it!

sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/2025/07...

From the abstract: "This paper examines how, in politically polarized contexts, people reconstruct the biographies of contested memorialized figures to challenge or reproduce dualistic metanarratives of national history."

New to FirstView, "Theorizing #Moral Liminality: Historical Biography, Political Co-optation, and the Decolonization of Public Space" from Andreja Siliunas and Cresa Pugh! #Sociology

doi.org/10.1017/S001...

New scholarship on FirstView! David Frankfurter's "Ritual and the Enemy Body: A New Approach to Modern Atrocity." #Violence #History #Anthropology

doi.org/10.1017/S001...