Biography

Dr Damodaran is a historian of modern India. Her work ranges from the social and political history of Bihar to the environmental history of South Asia. Her publications include; Broken Promises, Indian Nationalism and the Congress Party in Bihar (1992),  Nature and the Orient, Essays on the Environmental History of South and South-East Asia(1998) and Post Colonial India, History Politics and Culture (2000), British empire and the natural world: environmental encounters in South Asia, (2010) She is also the author of several articles in established journals. She is particularly interested in questions of identity and resistance and is completing a manuscript on landscape and indigeneity in Chotanagpur. An experienced researcher and teacher she is the director of the Centre for World Environmental History at Sussex. The centre is host to several research projects and a number of research associates. Dr Damodaran has had several research grants for her work from the ESRC, the Leverhulme Trust, the British Academy and the AHRC. She is currently leading an AHRC network project on the botanical and meterological history of the Indian Ocean 2012-2014. The centre collaborates actively with Kew, the British Library, the U.K. Met office and several institutions in India such as JNU, Delhi the Botanical Survey of India, Kolkata. She is engaged in building up the profile of South Asian studies and environmental history at the University of Sussex and internationally. She currently supervises 4 Phd students and is mentoring several post-doctoral scholars. Her recent talks include,  

June, 2008, Savage attack, reinterpreting adivasi movements in South Asia, University of London

August, 2008, Nature,knowledge and power in South Asia, University of Uppsala (conference consultant)

August 2005-2010 Sussex co-coordinator of the EU funded Cliohresnet project on research agendas for the new Europe and contributer to thier bi-annual meetings on Europe and the wider world.

March 2009, Asian environments shaping the world, National University of Singapore

April, 2009 Panel organiser, Environmental histories of South Asia, BASAS meeting, Edinburgh

October, 2009, Public lecture on 'Gandhi and his practice of politics' Bengali Society of Oxford

March 2010, 'Place and agency, landscape narratives of Singhbhum' University of Sussex

June 2010, organisor of CWEH summer workshop 'Themes in Global Environmental History', University of Sussex

July 2010, Panel convenor, Environment and empire, Anglo American conference, London

March 2011, AHRC invitee for conference on South Asian Historical records and climate change, Bangalore

May, 2011, IHR, seminar on Comparative histories of Asia, London

May 2011, University of Sussex, Conference Organiser, Botany, climate and empire

June, 2011, Historic weather workshop, U.K. Met office, Exeter

July 2011, University of Exeter, Plenary speaker, Environment and Identity

Sep, 2011, KNMI, Netherlands, 4th ACRE Workshop

December, 2011, Natural History Museum, London, 'Nathanial Wallich and Indian natural History'

June 2012, Past and Present conference on Heritage in the modern world, Brighton

June 2012,organiser, University of Sussex, workshop on  Electrifying Europe, the future generation of electricity and the supergrid

Dec, 2012 AHRC network on the botanical and meterological history of the Indian Ocean

May 2013, Utopian Archives, AHRC meeting UEA, Norwich

Directorships and Memberships

Council Member, British Academy Society for South Asian Studies, 2003-2006

Member, Association of south asian environmental historians, 2006-

University of Sussex, Senate member, 2007- 2009, 2012-

Member editorial board International journal of Development and Social research

Member, editorial board, Oecology international review of environmental history

Member programme committee Anglo-American conference on environments 2010

Director, Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex

Project consultant

Kew Gardens and the Natural History Museum on Indian garden drawings collections, 2009

British Library, Endangered Archives and World Collections project, 2009

Natural History Museum, Wallich and Indian Natural history, 2011

Coordinator for Sussex MOU with BL and MET office on historical records and climate change, 2012

Research grants, fellowships and elections

1994-95    Economic and Social Science Research grant

1997-98     Nuffield Social Science Research Fellowship

1997          British Academy Grant:  To run a Conference on 'India 50'

1997          University of Sussex  RDF Grant: To run "India 50 conference"

1999-2000  Leverhulme Research Fellowship

1999-2000  Visiting Associate, Program of Agrarian Studies Yale university

2001-2002  AHRB research project grant

2001          Elected Council member of the Society for South Asian Studies (British Academy)

2002          Research Development Fund to start the Centre for World Environmental History

2005-2006  AHRB Research Leave grant

2005-2009  British Academy Grant on East India Company and the Natural world with Dr Mark Harrisson, Director,  Welcome Institute for the History of Medicine, Oxford and Dr Rohan D'Souza, Centre for Science Policy, JNU, Delhi,

2005          April, Visiting Fellow, University of Uppsala

2005          August, Visiting Fellow, RMAP Unit of  the Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University

2005          November, Visiting Fellow, University of Jadavpur, Calcutta

2005-2010 Sussex co-coordinator for the EU funded project on research agendas for the New Europe

2008 External advisor for the Uppsala University conference on Nature, knowledge and power in South Asia, August

2009-2010 Programme committee , Anglo American conference, 2010

2011 AHRC funding to attend South Asia historical records and climate change, Bangalore

2011  Research Development Fund for CWEH project on the Indian correspondence of Joseph Hooker in collaboration with Kew Gardens.

Dr Damodaran teaches the following:

Undergraduate courses
Indian Civil Disobedience, South Asian since 1880 and Empires and Images, Nature and History, Race, ethnicity an nationalism. She also teaches her special subject on nationalism, decolonisation and the emergence of the nation state in India, 1937-51

Graduate courses
Include convening the M.A. programme at CDE entitled Globalisation, ethnicity and culture and the Contemporary History M.A. option Empire, science and environment. She also has supervised several Dphil students working in the field of environmental history and on the social, political and cultural aspects of South Asia. Current Dphil students include;

1. Pin Hsien Wu ' Formation of Environmental movements in China and India; a case study of mining'

2. Zahid Khalid, '  The  environmental history of Bhawalpur'

3. Olivier Chatterji 'A comparative history of Bauxite mining'

Student Consultation

My office hours this term are Monday 11-12 and Wednesday 12-1 in my office  A163. Please feel free to contact me via email as well.

Damodaran, Vinita (2013) Indigenous agency: landscape narratives of Singhbhum and the discourse of tribal protection in Eastern India. History Workshop Journal. ISSN 1363-3554 (In Press)

Damodaran, Vinita (2012) Environmental history and empire, a survey of the field. In: The Ashgate research companion to modern imperial histories. Ashgate Research Companions . Ashgate. ISBN 9780754664154

Damodaran, Vinita (2012) Colonialism, imperialism and environmental history. In: Encyclopaedia of life support systems. UNESCO Publishing-Eolss Publishers, Oxford.

Damodaran, Vinita (2011) Globalisation and sacred adivasi landscapes of Eastern India. In: Routledge handbook of heritage in Asia. Routledge, pp. 311-327. ISBN 9780415600453

Damodaran, Vinita (2011) Customary rights and resistance in the forests of Singhbhum. In: The politics of belonging in India: becoming Adivasi. Routledge, pp. 103-118. ISBN 9780415600828

Damodaran, Vinita (2011) Gender, race and science in twentieth century India: E.K. Janaki Ammal and the history of science. History of Science. ISSN 0073-2753 (In Press)

Damodaran, Vinita (2011) The British Raj, Gandhi and his practice of politics in India in the 1930s and 1940s. In: Global encounters, European identities. Creating links and innovative overviews for a new history research agenda for the citizens of a growing Europe (5). Plus, Pisa. ISBN 9788884927385

Damodaran, Vinita (2011) East India company and the natural world. Unset.

Damodaran, Vinita (2011) Indigenous forests: the Ho people of Singhbhum 1850-2000. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Damodaran, Vinita (2009) Globalization and tribal histories in eastern India. In: Environmental history: as if nature existed. Oxford University Press India. ISBN 9780198064480

Damodaran, Vinita (2008) Environment and empire: a major theme in world environmental history. In: Europe and its empires. Creating links and innovative overviews for a new history research agenda for the citizens of a growing Europe (3). PLUS-Pisa University Press, Pisa, pp. 129-139. ISBN 9788884925572

Damodaran, Vinita (2007) Tribes in Indian history. In: Situating environmental history. Manohar. ISBN 9788173046834

Damodaran, Vinita (2007) Famine in Bengal: a comparison of the 1770 famine in Bengal and the 1897 famine in Chotanagpur. Medieval History Journal, 10 (1-2). pp. 143-181. ISSN 0971-9458

Damodaran, Vinita (2006) [Review] N C Durham (2005) Environmentality: technologies of government and the making of subjects. Journal for Asian Studies, 65 (4). pp. 837-838. ISSN 0021-9118

Grove, Richard and Damodaran, Vinita (2006) Imperialism, Intellectual Networks and Environmental Change: Origins and Evolution of Global Environmental History, 1676-2000: Part II. Economic and Political Weekly, 41 (42). pp. 4497-4505. ISSN 0012-9976

Damodaran, Vinita (2006) The politics of marginality and the construction of indigeneity in Chotanagpur. Postcolonial Studies, 9 (2). pp. 179-196. ISSN 1466-1888

Damodaran, Vinita (2006) Indigenous forests: rights, discourses, and resistance in Chotanagpur, 1860-2002. In: Ecological nationalisms: nature, livelihoods, and identities in South Asia. Culture, place, and nature: studies in anthropology and environment . University of Washington Press. ISBN 9780295985312

Damodaran, Vinita (2006) Rights discourses and resistance in Chotangapur. In: Ecological nationalisms: nature, livelihoods and identities in South Asia. Culture, place, and nature: studies in anthropology and environment . University of Washington Press, pp. 115-150. ISBN 9780295985312

Damodaran, Vinita (2006) British colonial perceptions of race and tribe in India in the nineteenth century. In: Europe and the world. Edizoni, pp. 161-175.

Grove, Richard and Damodaran, Vinita (2006) Imperialism and environmental change: unearthing the origins and evolution of global environmental history from Edmond Halley to John Richards: 1676-2000. In: Does environmental history matter?: shikar, subsistence, sustenance, and the sciences. Readers Service, Kolkata, pp. 35-86. ISBN 8187891610

Damodaran, Vinita (2006) Colonial constructions of the 'tribe' in India: the case of Chotangapur. Indian Historical Review, 33 (1). pp. 44-76. ISSN 0376-9836

Damodaran, Vinita and Unnithan-Kumar, Maya (2004) Postcolonial India: History, Politics and Culture. Manohar.

Damodaran, Vinita (2002) Gender, forests and famine in nineteenth century Chotanagpur, India. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 9 (2). pp. 133-163. ISSN 0971-5215

Damodaran, Vinita (2002) History, landscape and indigeneity in Chotanagpur, 1850-1980. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 25 (2). pp. 77-110. ISSN 0085-6401

Damodaran, Vinita (2001) Empires and images. History of European Ideas, 27 (2). pp. 181-189. ISSN 0191-6599

Damodaran, Vinita (1997) Environment ethnicity and history in Chotanagpur India 1850-1970. Environment and History, 3 (3). pp. 273-298. ISSN 0967-3407

Damodaran, Vinita (1997) Introduction. In: Nature and the orient: The environmental history of south and southeast Asia. Studies in social ecology and environmental history . Oxford University Press, pp. 1-26. ISBN 9780195638967

Damodaran, Vinita (1995) Famine in a forest tract: ecological change and the causes of the 1897 famine in Chotanagpur, Northern India. Environment and History, 1 (2). pp. 129-158. ISSN 0967-3407

Damodaran, Vinita (1995) Bihar in the 1940s: Communities, riots and the state. Journal of South Asian Studies, 18 (S001). pp. 153-176. ISSN 0085-6401

Damodaran, Vinita (1993) Broken promises: Popular protest, Indian nationalism and the Congress party in Bihar, 1935-1946. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195629798

Damodaran, Vinita (1992) Azad Dastas and dacoit gangs: The congress and underground activity in Bihar, 1942-44. Modern Asian Studies, 26 (3). pp. 417-450. ISSN 0026-749X

Damodaran, Vinita (1990) Violence in the countryside: agrarian unrest and communal rioting in Bihar 1946. Studies in History, 6 (1). pp. 67-94. ISSN 0257-6430