Divya Cherian

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*

Four Books to Change Your Thinking About South Asian Religions - Reading Religion By Anne Murphy There are times in a career when work in the field stops you in your tracks. With this “Four Books” installment, I’d like to present two

Our latest Four Books post highlights scholarship that reframes how we think about South Asian religions—Sikh history, caste, Hindu–Muslim relations, and Islamic pasts and futures.
Read here → buff.ly/ZA0YXpU

What recent work has reshaped your understanding of the region?

Toward Partition and Beyond

I'm very pleased to share this project I've been a part of about rare historical photographs of the Pakistan movement and the 1947 partition of South Asia. The images were taken by Lahore-based photographer Muhammad Bakhsh Bhatti and generously made available by his grandson, Shahzeb Bhatti. 1/3

Lovely! And perfect fit!

Ghinn: Colorism and gendered revulsion in North India This article examines how colorism is gendered in North India by foregrounding women's narratives of being subjected to ghinn—disgust or repugnance—around their skin tone. I argue that paying attenti...

Katyayani Dalmia on caste and colorism in India:

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

A “Striking” Trend: After Texas Banned Abortion, More Women Nearly Bled to Death During Miscarriage A new ProPublica data analysis adds to the mounting evidence that abortion bans have made the common experience of first-trimester miscarriage far more dangerous.

More women have nearly bled to death during miscarriage under Texas’ abortion ban.

Experts say the trend paints a troubling picture of the harms of unnecessary delays in care.

“This is striking,” one doctor said. “The trend is very clear.”

Trump saying people of color are naturally suited to farm labor sure sounds a lot like the slaveholders that said slaves were naturally inclined to servitude

What the Columbia Settlement Really Means

The Columbia settlement is an “astonishing transfer of autonomy and authority to . . . an administration whose disdain for the values of the academy is demonstrated anew every day.” New @knightcolumbia.org analysis of the Columbia settlement, just published. knightcolumbia.org/blog/what-th...

A Palestinian girl tells her father, “It’s okay,” urging him to risk their lives for food as Israel restricts aid to Gaza and shoots at those trying to reach it.

When the bodies of starving children in Gaza reach a ‘point of no return’ Children in Gaza have begun to die of severe malnutrition in increasing numbers as Israel continues to starve the people of Gaza. Infants are the most severely affected, as hunger devours their…

Children in Gaza have begun to die of severe malnutrition in increasing numbers as Israel continues to starve the people of Gaza. Infants are the most severely affected, as hunger devours their bodies until they reach "a point of no return." mondoweiss.net/2025/07/when...

An increasing number of infants suffering from malnutrition have been admitted to Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital in Gaza City.

Zohran Mamdani Says He’s a Democratic Socialist. What Does That Mean?

Most of the ideas mentioned in this article—higher minimum wage, free tuition at public colleges, higher taxes on the rich—are not only popular now but were realities in the past, including in NYC, during the booming postwar years, when America was “great.”/1
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/u...

Today is the day the NEH has been fully dismantled in all but name.

Durba Mitra's fabulous new book is now live! Congrats @durba.bsky.social!!!

Now hiring! UC Press is looking for a detail-oriented Editorial Assistant to join our hybrid team in Oakland, CA! This is a fantastic opportunity to work behind the scenes on impactful scholarly and trade books. buff.ly/3Cd8znb #PublishingJobs #EditorialCareers

Cover image: Judith Weisenfeld, Black Religion in the Madhouse: Race and Psychiatry in Slavery's Wake. NYU Press. Save 30% when you use code NYUAU30 on checkout at nyupress.org.

Coming April 29, 2025 and available for pre-order, with 30% off (use code NYUAU30) when ordering from @nyupress.bsky.social.

nyupress.org/978147982978...

left: Nicolas Cage with long black hair and a moustache in a black top right: Spinoza with long black hair and a moustache in a black top

a short thread of Nicolas Cage resembling various philosophers

1. Spinoza

Hope you’ll join @dillivali.bsky.social, Steven Lindquist, and Anna Seastrand and I at the New Books in Hindu Studies roundtable at #AARSBL24 on Sunday!

I’m getting included in a lot of Buddhist circles, which is not always the case but I’m very excited. Here is a photograph from Saranpur (modern day Bihar) of an itinerant Buddhist monk from a colonial archive of photographs located at the British Library.