Partha Pratim Shil
Assistant Professor of History
Bio
I am an historian of modern South Asia, specializing in nineteenth and early twentieth century eastern India, with a developing research interest in the late eighteenth century. My work is located at the intersection of the fields of histories of state formation and labour history. I am particularly interested in the histories of government workers and how this labour history intrinsic to the state apparatus recasts our understanding of state formation.
I am currently working on the manuscript of my first book, provisionally entitled 'Sovereign Labour: Constables and Watchmen in the Making of the Modern State in India, c. 1860-1950'. This monograph is a study of police constables and village watchmen in Bengal from the promulgation of the Police Act in 1861 until the upheavals of decolonisation in the mid-twentieth century. It reframes the history of constables and village watchmen, usually represented as government functionaries, as the history of a distinctive form of labour.
The most important methodological innovation of this study is to bring methods from the historiography of labour in South Asia in conversation with the vast archive of the colonial police and to demonstrate how we can rewrite police history as labour history. Sovereign Labour charts the contours of the market of security labour in eastern India and locates the emergence of colonial police workforces within the rhythms of this labour market. It reveals the patterns in the history of constabulary recruitment; examines the implications of the conditions of police work for the nature of police power; delineates the internal segmentation within the world of police labour, and the defining role of caste in shaping modern policing apparatuses in colonial India; and brings out fresh evidence about the myriad modes of politics devised by police workers in this region. More broadly, my aim is to clear a conceptual ground for the study of forms of labour within the apparatuses of the modern state as well as demonstrate how the history of the labouring lives of government workers can provide a fresh entry point into the nature of the modern state in South Asia.
Before joining Stanford, I was a Junior Research Fellow in History at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Academic Appointments
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Assistant Professor, History
2024-25 Courses
- Graduate Colloquium in Modern South Asian History
HISTORY 397 (Spr) - Police Power in World History
HISTORY 206P, HISTORY 306P (Win) - Resisting Empire: Anti-colonial Nationalism, Popular Politics & Decolonization in Modern South Asia
ASNAMST 196C, ASNAMST 96C, FEMGEN 196C, FEMGEN 96C, HISTORY 196C, HISTORY 96C (Win) -
Independent Studies (6)
- Graduate Directed Reading
HISTORY 399W (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Graduate Research
HISTORY 499X (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Senior Research I
HISTORY 299A (Aut, Win, Spr) - Senior Research II
HISTORY 299B (Aut, Win, Spr) - Senior Research III
HISTORY 299C (Aut, Win, Spr) - Undergraduate Directed Research and Writing
HISTORY 299S (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Graduate Directed Reading
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Prior Year Courses
2023-24 Courses
- Decolonial Thought
ESF 21 (Aut) - Decolonial Thought
ESF 21A (Aut) - Global History & Pedagogy Workshop
HISTORY 306D (Spr) - Graduate Colloquium in Modern South Asian History
ANTHRO 397H, FEMGEN 397, HISTORY 397 (Aut) - The Structure of Colonial Power: South Asia since the Eighteenth Century
ANTHRO 197C (Win) - The Structure of Colonial Power: South Asia since the Eighteenth Century
ANTHRO 97C (Win) - The Structure of Colonial Power: South Asia since the Eighteenth Century
HISTORY 197C (Win) - The Structure of Colonial Power: South Asia since the Eighteenth Century
HISTORY 97C (Win)
2022-23 Courses
- Core Colloquium in South Asian History
FEMGEN 397, HISTORY 397 (Win) - Decolonial Thought
ESF 21 (Aut) - Decolonial Thought
ESF 21A (Aut) - Doing Labor History
FEMGEN 200LB, HISTORY 200LB (Win) - Graduate Workshop: Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity
CSRE 301C (Spr) - Graduate Workshop: Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
ARTHIST 499, FEMGEN 299 (Spr) - Resisting Empire: Anti-colonial Nationalism, Popular Politics & Decolonization in Modern South Asia
FEMGEN 196C, FEMGEN 96C, HISTORY 196C, HISTORY 96C (Aut)
2021-22 Courses
- The History of 2021
HISTORY 21 (Aut) - The Structure of Colonial Power: South Asia since the Eighteenth Century
ANTHRO 197C (Aut) - The Structure of Colonial Power: South Asia since the Eighteenth Century
ANTHRO 97C (Aut) - The Structure of Colonial Power: South Asia since the Eighteenth Century
HISTORY 197C (Aut) - The Structure of Colonial Power: South Asia since the Eighteenth Century
HISTORY 97C (Aut) - The Worlds of Labor in Modern India
ANTHRO 196F (Win) - The Worlds of Labor in Modern India
ANTHRO 296F (Win) - The Worlds of Labor in Modern India
HISTORY 296L (Win) - The Worlds of Labor in Modern India
HISTORY 396L (Win)
- Decolonial Thought
Stanford Advisees
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Doctoral (Program)
Mahishan Gnanaseharan, Karventha Kuppusamy