Dr Jay Sarkar
- Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History (Economic & Social History)
email:
Jayita.Sarkar@glasgow.ac.uk
pronouns:
She/her/hers
Adam Smith Building, 806, Bute Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8RT
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6075-4400Biography
Jayita Sarkar is Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow. Before joining Glasgow, she was an Assistant Professor at Boston University, a Niehaus Fellow at Dartmouth College, Fellow at the Weatherhead Initiative in Global History, Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy, and Stanton Postdoctoral Fellow, all at Harvard University. Her research and teaching areas are global and transnational histories of decolonisation, capitalism, nuclear infrastructures, and South Asia.
Her first book, Ploughshares and Swords. India’s Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War (Cornell University Press, 2022), received Honourable Mention for the 2023 Best Book Award from ISA's Global Development Studies Section. The book has been positively reviewed in Cold War History, Choice, Kirkus, and Toynbee Prize among others. Reviews are forthcoming in Diplomatic History, Technology and Culture, H-Diplo, Passport, and elsewhere. The book can be freely read here.
She is currently writing two books on different subjects. Her second book, Atomic Capitalism. A Global History (under contract with Princeton University Press, America in the World series), explores the role of corporations and governments in land expropriation, labour exploitation, and debt generation from the 1890s to the 1990s through mining, explosions, and energy sites of nuclear infrastructures. Her third book, Connected Partitions. From South Asia to the World, centres statelessness to study how the idea and practice of territorial divisions travelled from South Asia to the rest of the world through imperial statecraft and international organisations, such as the League of Nations and United Nations.
Dr Sarkar is co-leading two collaborative projects related to her books. She is co-editing a volume, Partition Machine: Legacies of the 1920s in a Violent World, with Laura Robson (Pennsylvania State University) and Georgios Giannakopoulos (City University of London) for submission to the British Academy's book series published by Oxford University Press. She is also part of the co-editorial team for the special issue, Radioactive Empires:The Nuclear Relations of Coloniality, for peer-reviewed open access journal, Environmental Humanities, published by Duke University Press, along with Rebecca Macklin (University of Edinburgh), Laura M. De Vos (Radboud University), Sonja Dobroski (University of Manchester), and Susanne Ferwerda (University of Utrecht).
For more information and a full CV, please visit: JayitaSarkar.com
Research interests
Global and transnational histories of
- decolonisation
- capitalism
- technology
- South Asia
- United States
Grants
PI, Stanton Foundation Nuclear Security Grant at University of Glasgow, 2023-24, US$ 49,500 (~£41,000)
PI, British Academy Grant for “Partition Machine," conference and edited volume for Oxford University Press, 2023-24, £20,000
PI, University of Glasgow Chancellor’s Fund, “Decolonisation Podcast & Archive Fellows,” 2022-24, £4,000
External research fellowship: Hoover Institution, Silas Palmer research grant for archival research, 2022, US$ 2,500
PI, Swiss National Science Foundation, Open Access Book Grant, 2021, PI, 14,000 CHF
External research fellowship: Harvard University, Ernest May Fellowship in History and Policy, 2020, US$ 44,000
PI, Stanton Foundation Applied History Grant at Boston University, 2019, PI, US$ 34,909
External research fellowship: Dartmouth College, US Foreign Policy & International Security Fellowship, 2018, US$ 46,000
PI, Stanton Foundation Nuclear Security Grant at Boston University, 2017, US$ 50,000
External research fellowship: Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, Research Fellowship, 2014, 13,000 NOK
External research fellowship: Albert Gallatin Pre-doctoral Fellowship in International Affairs at Yale University, 2013, US$ 14,000
Hans Wilsdorf Foundation Doctoral Scholarship at Graduate Institute Geneva, 2010–11, 20,000 CHF
Regional Council of Paris Region Masters Scholarship, University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, 2009–10, 10,000 EUR
Supervision
I welcome students interested in the following research themes at BA, MA/MSc, and PhD levels:
The temporal framework is 1890s to 1990s.
- South Asia in the world
- Global Cold War
- Nuclear politics (mining, explosions, energy, and waste)
- US global power
- Histories of capitalism
- Histories of decolonisation
- Histories of technology
Current PhD students:
- Tzu-Yin Chou, Jean: Ethnic politics, local mobility, and medical management in Singapore under British colonialism
- Yi, Duanyi
How unique was China's Nuclear Strategy ( 1964-1993)
Teaching
At the University of Glasgow:
- ESH 4087, Global South Asia: Honours-level course, sole convenor
- ESH 5069, Decolonisation & International Economic Relations: Postgraduate taught course, sole convenor
- Nuclear Technologies in History, Politics, and Society: Postgraduate taught course, sole convenor
- ESH Level 1A: Team-taught module; contributor on themes of global histories of inequalities, including, colonialism, slavery, and empires.
- ESH Level 1B: Team-taught module; contributor on themes of global histories of inequalities, including, anticolonialism, development politics, and cold wars.
Prior teaching, at Boston University:
- Global South Asia
- History, Policy, & Statecraft [historical methods course]
- International Nuclear Politics
- History of International Relations since 1945 [core undergraduate course]
- Global Decolonization Research Internships [co-curricular]
Professional activities & recognition
Prizes, awards & distinctions
- 2023: Honourable Mention for Best Book Award (International Studies Association Global Development Studies Section)
- 2018: Grand Prize Winner for Best Article of the Year (Doreen and Jim McElvany Nonproliferation Challenge)
- 2022: Elected Fellow (Royal Historical Society)
- 2022: Elected Fellow (Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland)
Research fellowships
- 06/2022 - 08/2022: University of Edinburgh, Institute for the Advanced Studies in the Humanities
- 09/2020 - 06/2021: Harvard University, Weatherhead Initiative on Global History
- 09/2020 - 06/2021: Harvard Kennedy School, Ernest May Fellowship in History & Policy
- 09/2018 - 06/2019: Dartmouth College, Niehaus Postdoctoral Fellow
- 08/2016 - 06/2017: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SNSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow
- 09/2015 - 05/2016: Harvard Kennedy School, Managing the Atom Postdoctoral Fellowship
- 08/2014 - 06/2015: Harvard Kennedy School, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellowship
Grant committees & research advisory boards
- 2021 - 2024: Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, William Appleman Williams Emerging Scholar Research Grant Committee
- 2022 - present: Arms Control Association, Board of Directors
- 2020 - 2021: American Institute of Bangladesh Studies, Board of Trustees
- 2018 - 2020: Society for the History of Technology, Joan Cahalin Robinson Prize Committee Member
- 2019 - 2019: American Academy of Berlin, Grant Application Reviewer
- 2017 - 2017: Carnegie Corporation of New York, Grant Application Reviewer
- 2015 - 2015: Smith Richardson Foundation, Grant Application Reviewer
Editorial boards
- 2022 - present: Cold War History (journal)
- 2022 - present: Global Nuclear Histories, McGill-Queen’s University Press (book series)
Professional & learned societies
- 2021 - 2021: Officer-at-Large, Diplomatic Studies Section (DPLST), International Studies Association
- 2020 - 2023: Internationalization Task Force Member, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
- 2018 - 2020: Officer-at-Large, South Asia in World Politics Section (SAWP), International Studies Association
- 2019 - 2019: Program Committee Member, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
Selected international presentations
- 24/04/2023: Washington History Conference (Woodrow Wilson Center and American Historical Association, Washington, DC, USA)
- 11/04/2023: Conversations on South Asia (Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA)
- 28/11/2022: International History & Politics Forum, IHP/ANSO (Geneva Graduate Institute, Switzerland)
- 10/03/2022: Book Talk, CISAC, Nuclear Reading Group (Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA)
- 14/02/2022: Weatherhead Initiative on Global History Seminar (Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA)
- 18/11/2021: Book Talk, Security Studies Seminar (Carnegie India, New Delhi, India)
- 07/04/2021: Science and Global Security Seminar (Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA)
- 30/11/2020: Science, Technology, and Society Circle (Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA)
Additional information
Decolonisation through Archives, Scotland @ University of Glasgow, launching in 2023.
For more information, please visit: https://www.decolonisationthrougharchives.scot/
