Mudit Trivedi
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Bio
Mudit Trivedi is an archaeologist with interests in religious subjectivity, materiality, craft and historical anthropology.
His first book project, An Archaeology of Virtue, considers the archaeology of conversion to Islam through the results of an ongoing long-term archaeological project he has co-directed at the site of Indor in Rajasthan, North India. This research bridges archaeological and anthropological conceptualizations of tradition. It considers the thematizations of ethical relations, hierarchies and gendered pious praxis in material media. It brings together analyses of architectural, spatial and artifactual datasets combined with compositional elemental analyses. The project’s wider goals are to rethink the secular modern commitments of archaeology and the nature of the archaeological trace.
Mudit is also interested in developing critiques of archaeology’s disciplinary commitments to liberal values and legal infrastructures. A first paper from this project critically re-situates colonial Treasure Trove laws that framed the archaeological common good around the taking of finds from others. This second project reconsiders archaeological praxis and the discipline’s recourse to property law in a series of South Asian contexts ranging from accidental finds to disputes centred on waqfs.
His forthcoming publications relate to these combined interests. They cover archaeometric insights into social contexts of glass artifact production and use in South Asian and other contexts; the long-term settlement history of the region of Mewat in North India, and theoretical problems in the historical and archaeological study of religion and conversion. He has co-edited a special issue of the Medieval History Journal on ‘Archaeologies of the Medieval in South Asia’.
Academic Appointments
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Assistant Professor, Anthropology
2024-25 Courses
- Contemporary Debates in Archaeological Thought
ANTHRO 303A (Win) - History of Archaeological Thought
ANTHRO 103B, ARCHLGY 103 (Win) -
Independent Studies (13)
- Directed Individual Reading in Anthropology
ANTHRO 454 (Aut, Win) - Directed Individual Study
ANTHRO 96 (Aut, Win) - Directed Individual Study for Anthropologists
ANTHRO 451 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Graduate Internship
ANTHRO 452 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Graduate Teaching
ANTHRO 440 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Independent Study for Honors or Senior Paper Writing
ANTHRO 95B (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Internship in Anthropology
ANTHRO 97 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Master's Project
ANTHRO 441 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Qualifying Exam Preparation in Anthropology
ANTHRO 455 (Aut) - Qualifying Examination: Area
ANTHRO 401B (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Qualifying Examination: Topic
ANTHRO 401A (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Research Apprenticeship
ANTHRO 450 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Research in Anthropology
ANTHRO 95 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Directed Individual Reading in Anthropology
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Prior Year Courses
2023-24 Courses
- Agency
ANTHRO 391A (Spr) - History of Archaeological Thought
ANTHRO 103B, ARCHLGY 103 (Spr)
2022-23 Courses
- Contemporary Debates in Archaeological Thought
ANTHRO 303A (Win) - History of Archaeological Thought
ANTHRO 103B, ARCHLGY 103 (Spr) - Tradition
ANTHRO 332B (Win)
2021-22 Courses
- History of Archaeological Thought
ANTHRO 103B, ARCHLGY 103, CLASSICS 170 (Spr) - Proposal Writing Seminar in Archaeology
ANTHRO 308A (Spr) - Tradition
ANTHRO 332B (Win)
- Agency
Stanford Advisees
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Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Shubhangni Gupta, Saad Lakhani, Shikha Nehra, shandana waheed -
Doctoral (Program)
Gabriella Armstrong, Mansa Ghildiyal, Eva Middleton, Víctor Márquez, Matthew Padgett
All Publications
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Inscriptions of Nature: Geology and the Naturalization of Antiquity (Book Review)
INDIAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY REVIEW
2022; 59 (3): 411-414
View details for DOI 10.1177/00194646221109931
View details for Web of Science ID 000850334400009
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Introduction: Archaeologies of the Medieval
MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL
2021; 24 (1-2): 10-16
View details for DOI 10.1177/09719458211060994
View details for Web of Science ID 000730725800002
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Between Archaeography and Historiography: Unsettling the Medieval?
MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL
2021; 24 (1-2): 244-280
View details for DOI 10.1177/09719458211055884
View details for Web of Science ID 000730725800009
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On Taking from Others: History and Sensibility in Archaeologists' Arguments for Treasure Trove Legislations
PUBLIC ARCHAEOLOGY
2018; 17 (2-3): 110-136
View details for DOI 10.1080/14655187.2019.1645564
View details for Web of Science ID 000482158900001