Current Position:
Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in South Asian History (2006-2009), Department of South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania.

Research and Teaching Interests:
Dr Ramnarayan (Ram) Rawat is a historian of Modern South Asia. His areas of research concern social, cultural and economic history of colonial and post-colonial India. He is particularly interested in histories of colonialism and nationalism as they intersect with the many subaltern narratives of the past which seek to contest dominant historiography. In addition, his research and teaching address the following themes: postcolonial studies; subaltern studies; Dalit ('untouchable') and lower caste movements; history of South Asia; race in India, the United States, and Brazil; and South Asian religions.
Ram is currently working on a book manuscript titled "Untouchable Boundaries of Colonialism and Nationalism: A Social History of an Untouchable Community in North India" for publication. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim dissertation fellowship (2003-2004) and a four-year SEPHIS Foundation doctoral fellowship from the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam (1999-2003). As a Rockefeller fellow at the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington (2004-2005) he explored Dalit histories written in Hindi for popular audiences, bringing these largely ignored accounts into conversation with colonial and nationalist narratives. His writings have made important interventions within Indian historiography, and his work is now taught in colleges and universities in India, the USA, England and Japan.

Courses for this term and next term:
Fall 07:

Spring 2007:

Fall 2006:

Education:

Department of History: University of Delhi.	Thesis entitled, "The Making of the Scheduled Caste Community: A Study of the Scheduled Castes Federation and Dalit Politics in Uttar Pradesh, 1946-48." Gyan Pandey, supervisor.	M.Phil.	1996
Department of History: University of Delhi.	Dissertation entitled, "A Social History of ‘Chamars’ in Uttar Pradesh, 1881-1956." Shahid Amin, supervisor.	Ph.D.	2006

•	"The Making of a Dalit Perspective: The 1940s and the Chamars of Uttar Pradesh", in Festschrift volume for Eleanor Zelliot, edited by Anne Feldhaus and Manu Bhagavan, under review at Routledge, New York.
•	Dalit Perspectives, planned and edited special issue of the prestigious South Asian journal, Seminar, February 2006. The journal has extensive sales and circulation not only in India, but also in the US and Europe. Many professors use special issues of the journal in courses on South Asia. (www.india-seminar.com)
•	"Making Claims for Power: A New Agenda in Dalit Politics of Uttar Pradesh, 1946-48," Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3 (September 2003). (Article revised from chapter one of my M.Phil. thesis.)
•	"Partition Politics and Achhut Identity: A Study of Scheduled Castes Federation and Dalit politics in U.P. 1946-1948," in The Partitions of Memory, Suvir Kaul, ed. (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001, and Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002). This article, also from my M.Phil. thesis, is now being used for MA students in History at Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University. It has also been used in courses at Yale and other U.S. institutions, as well as universities in England and Japan.

•	Rockefeller Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Critical Asian Studies, Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, Seattle, 2004-2005.
•	Harry Frank Guggenheim Dissertation Fellowship, September 2003 to August 2004. Project entitled "Overcoming Domination: Struggles of Identity among the Chamars of Uttar Pradesh, 1881-1956."
•	SEPHIS Doctoral Fellowship, International Institute of Social History (IISG), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, October 1999-2003. (SEPHIS: South-South Exchange Programme for Research on the History of Development).