Grateful to the Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences journal and Melissa Baldwin and Dominik Huenniger for including my reflections on the methods & practices that I used to write my first monograph as part of their new special issue, "Historical Practice," on the many ways to be a historian.

Partition, My Father, and His Wife By Harbans Mukhia (With a Unexpected Coda by Anjum Altaf)

This is such a beautiful two-parter. The eminent Mughal historian Harbans Mukhia on his ancestral village in West Panjab, Pakistan in *Peshawar Review*

Developing Indian pasts? The Archaeological Survey of India, ‘postcolonial’ archaeology, and technical assistance in Nepal - William Carruthers, 2026 This article examines archaeological assistance provided to Nepal by the Archaeological Survey of India as part of India’s aid efforts there in the 1960s. It de...

I have a new article out (open access!) about what the Archaeological Survey of India was doing in Nepal in the 1960s, with thoughts about the global complexity of post-war archaeological knowledge and the categories we use to understand it: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

#HistSci friends, might someone know where this image is originally from? (Here, on the Nov 1937 cover of the Hindi pop-sci monthly Vigyan.)

In the second installment of our “10 Questions for the Historian of Science,” I interviewed Audrey Truschke about her research, the state of the history of science, and public engagement within broader global debates. www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/feature-stor...

@mpiwg.bsky.social

Hurt Sentiments — Harvard University Press Winner of the Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book PrizeAn insightful history of censorship, hate speech, and majoritarianism in post-partition South Asia.At the time of the India-Pakistan partition in 19...

www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

Slandering the Sacred A history of global secularism and political feeling through colonial blasphemy law.   Why is religion today so often associated with giving and taking offense? To answer this question, Slandering the...

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Does anyone know of scholars currently working on the history of defamation (libel, slander) or more broadly on law and reputation, or even law and honor, in history? Any time, any place.

The 19th Ischia Summer School in the History of the Life Sciences will take place 28 Jun - 5 July 2026. Interested graduate students should apply by 27 February. This year's theme? PROBLEMS of GROWTH! ischiasummerschool.org/theme #histSTM #histbio #histsci

Can anyone recommend scholarly work on human rights crimes (mass atrocities) with a forensic science angle? This is for a "jigsaw discussion" in my undergrad History of Forensic Science course. I'm seeking case studies from places other than Poland, Guatemala & Chile #ForensicScience #HumanRights

Sensing the Social If science studies and religious studies were convened absent a narrative of secularity, what knowledge would emerge from their encounter?

Experiments in collaborative thought, between science studies and religious studies: tif.ssrc.org/category/sen... #ImmanentFrame #histSTM Edited by the wonderful Mona Oraby

Centre for Legal History of India (CLHI)

Big exciting news: the Centre for Legal History of India at the Max Planck Institute has now been launched (the first of its kind anywhere) www.lhlt.mpg.de/4712897/01-r... Applications for 3 doctoral positions + a postdoc due: 6 Jan. 2026. Congratulations to head Reeju Ray & everyone else involved!

Title page of proofs of the upcoming Necessary Inventions: Roger Bacon, the Middle Ages, and the Making of Modern Science.

Page proofs of Necessary Inventions: Roger Bacon, the Middle Ages, and the Making of Modern Science. Holy crap, I did it!

Fear of the False by Mitra Sharafi | Paperback | Cornell University Press Fear of the False uncovers colonial South Asia's critical role in the development of forensic science. Around 1900, the government of British India created a web of institutions for the scientific det...

I'm very excited to share my new book's cover design: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501... It is bloodstain-inspired because species-of-origin bloodstain testing is a big part of the story. Out on 15 April 2026 & Open Access as part of the Corpus Juris book series @cornellupress.bsky.social

The Future That Was How Third World women seized the means of knowledge production to fight against rising authoritarianism and imagine a future freer than our present

The Introduction, “What is the Future We Yearn For?,” to my book, *The Future That Was*, is now live and freely available to all on the book’s @princetonupress.bsky.social website

press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

The article I’m writing is about the rise of a commercial lithographic print culture in Pashto, but I also got to check out the oldest Pashto movable type printed book, a copy of the Bible produced by the the Serampore Missionaries in Bengal in 1818. UChicago holds one of the few extant copies.

The Future That Was How Third World women seized the means of knowledge production to fight against rising authoritarianism and imagine a future freer than our present

The cover for my book, The Future That Was, is now live! It features the MacArthur genius artist Shahzia Sikander's Infinite Woman (2021), where earth is surrounded by an infinite series of women marching around the globe who, from afar, become rays of the sun ☀️

press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Worldly Afterlives The hidden histories of empire, told through the haunted afterlives of colonial migrations

Just discovered that Julia Stephens' new book will be out soon! I've been looking forward to this since a UK train conversation with Julia years ago about jewelry in South Asian history: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... @juliasteph

The Focus issue I edited in Isis: "Is Deep History White?" is out. With contributions from Amy Way, Linda Andersson Burnett, Elise K. Burton, Emily Kern, and an Afterword by Alison Bashford

A new Isis Focus Section asks a bold question: “Is deep history white?”The issue shows how ideas of deep time emerged through European geology, empire, and the dismissal of Indigenous temporal knowledge. Deep history has long carried the imprint of a distinctly white European, extractive worldview.

Launch of Medicine on a Larger Scale: Global Histories of Social Medicine at HoMSEA meeting, Yogyakarta, June 25. Book available open access at www.cambridge.org/core/books/m...
Dr Sudirman Nasir, public health, Makassar, launched it with aplomb. With @hanspols.bsky.social & @ahlie.bsky.social & me

Programme for the day 10.00-10.30 | Introductory remarks Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh & Mika Hyman 10.30-11.00 - Coffee break 11.00-11.45 | De-fossilising knowledge: can/should the lithosphere tell human stories? Siyakha Mguni & Jeremy Schneider 11.45-12.00 – Coffee break 12.00-12.45 | Giving intentionally silenced archives a voice Rabia Abba Omar & Theo di Castri 12.45-13.45 – Lunch break 13.45-14.30 | Manipulating measurements, appropriating ancient climates: the politics of environmental proxies Anna Simon-Stickley & Amelia Urry 14.30-14.45 – Coffee break 14.45-15.30 | Contesting collecting: Indigenous material cultures James Poskett & Lynette Russell 15.30-15.45 – Coffee break 15.45-16.30 | Rooted consumption: can/should plants speak Mika Hyman & Sebestian Kroupa 16.30-16.45 – Coffee break 16.45-17.30 | Afterword and open discussion: Where next from cross-contextualization? Sujit Sivasundaram

Very excited for this event at Cambridge HPS this Friday, co-organised with Mika Hyman, on cross-contextualisation (for more on c-c, see here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....)

I’m thrilled to announce that from September I’ll be joining @warburginstitute.bsky.social as a Frances Yates Long-Term Fellow. It’s a position I’ve aspired to since 2019, when I studied Warburg for an MPhil essay. Can’t wait to meet such an exciting group of scholars!

For those in Cambridge and environs, announcement of 29th Annual Hans Rausing Lecture at the Dept of History & Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, June 5, 3:30 pm. #histsci #histech #sts

www.hps.cam.ac.uk/news-events/...

Frank Rövekamp discussing some findings about Shogi from the Ohashi records.

Yesterday Prof. Frank Rövekamp (Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences) gave an inspiring and lively talk on Shogi, the Japanese cousin of Western chess, in the ASTRA colloquium series "The Ludic Languages of Asia: Sources and Terminologies".

🔗 www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/event/shogi-...

Soviet Spacecraft Crash Lands on Earth After a Journey of Half a Century

The Soviet spacecraft that came in from the cold (and fell into the Indian Ocean this morning) -- @nytimes.com on Kosmos-482, the lost Soviet Venus probe from 1972 and its legacy. I'm quoted a few times. (Gift article)
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/s...

Plenary with the authors of an #HistSci classic, and the first time, apparently, that the chair, John Tresch, sees Stephen Shapin and Simon Schaffer in the same room.

Mark your calendars! 📅

I'm thrilled to share the line-up for the fall 2025 Science and Technology in Asia online seminar series.

Hope you'll be able to join us for one or more of these sessions!

seow.scholars.harvard.edu/STinAsia

#histstm #histsci #histtech #histmed #sts #envhist #envhum 🧪