On November 30, 2016, the Departments of History and English hosted a panel entitled “Hidden Histories of South Asian America,” which examined the diverse narratives of South Asian immigrants and their collective impact on the culture, politics, and art of the places where they build their lives.
Ananya Chakravarti, assistant professor of history, moderated a discussion with Samip Mallick, co-founder and executive director of the South Asian American Digital Archive; Gaiutra Bahadur, fellow at Harvard’s DuBois Institute and author of Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture (2013); and Piyali Bhattacharya, a writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University and author of Good Girls Marry Doctors: South Asian American Daughters on Obedience and Rebellion (2016). The panelists provided commentary on the lived experience of South Asian immigrants, with particular attention to the anthropological, cultural, and political dimensions of their lives that have been largely invisible to their neighbors, friends, and colleagues.
This event was co-sponsored by Theory and Practice: Humanities in the World, a seminar series of the Georgetown Institute for Global History, the Department of English, and the Georgetown University India Initiative.
Gaiutra Bahadur is a fellow at Harvard’s DuBois Institute and the author of the Orwell Prize-shortlisted Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture, a narrative history of Indian indenture in the Caribbean.
Piyali Bhattacharya is a writer, editor, and writing instructor based in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is a writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University.
Ananya Chakravarti is an assistant professor in Georgetown University’s Department of History whose work focuses primarily on the intersection of religion and empire in South Asia and South America.
Samip Mallick is the co-founder and executive director of the South Asian American Digital Archive, a national non-profit organization that digitally documents, preserves, and share stories of South Asian Americans, giving voice to overlooked histories and creating a more inclusive society.
