I am an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Iowa. Previously, I was Instructor in History and International Comparative Studies at Duke University.
My book in progress traces how middle-class women’s everyday urban practices drove nationalist politics during the Civil Disobedience Movement in late colonial India, even as the freedoms they claimed frequently exceeded and contradicted the nationalist agenda itself. Central to this argument is the class boundary-drawing through which these women staked claims to a new urban public life, with consequences extending well beyond the colonial period.
I draw on image-based and textual archives to bring new methodological approaches to modern South Asian history. My publications include the co-edited volume Photographing Civil Disobedience: Bombay, 1930–31 (Mapin/Alkazi 2025) and work in History of Photography. My curated exhibition Disobedient Subjects: Bombay, 1930–31 has been shown at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and has received coverage in the BBC, Frontline, and The Times of India, among other outlets.
Learn more about my ongoing research on the visual, consumer, and gender history of disobedience in colonial India here.
Linked here is a summary of my recent publications, and you can find ways to connect with me here.