Occupation
Associate Professor
Contact
MESAAS, Columbia University
419 Knox Hall
606 West 122nd Street
New York
NY
10027
United States
ABOUT
Mana Kia’s interests are the early modern and modern connective social, cultural, intellectual histories of West, Central and South Asia from the 17th - 19th centuries, with a particular focus on Indo-Persian literary culture and social history. Her interests include: ruptures and continuities between the early modern and modern periods, intra-Asian travel and migration, gender and sexuality, historiographies beyond nationalism, and critical scrutiny of our own analytic and conceptual language for studying the past.
She is currently finishing a book on transregional Persianate sensibilities of belonging in the 18th century, which critiques protonationalist modes of envisioning West and South Asian cultures and societies, and offers new modes of understanding the importance of the circulation of people, texts, and ideas between these regions. She has also begun work on a project examining the relationship between early modern ethics of love and loyalty in companionship and the production of Persian texts commonly used as source materials for the study of 18th-century India.
Discipline
History
Sub Areas
Gender/Women's Studies
Iranian Studies
South Asian Studies
13th-18th Centuries
19th-21st Centuries
Cultural Studies
Mughal Studies
Nationalism
Persian
Identity/Representation
Historiography
Geographic Areas of Interest
All Middle East
India
Iran
Central Asia
Specialties
Early & Mod Indian Ocean Migration
Early Modern And Modern Iranian History
Persianate Cultural And Social History
Languages
French (intermediate)
Persian (fluent)
Urdu (intermediate)
Education
PhD
| 2011
| History/Middle Eastern Studies
| Harvard University
MA
| 2001
| NE Stds
| New York U
BA
| 1997
| International Studies
| Vassar College
Abstracts
Political Loyalties and Social Ties: Historicizing Reliable Information in 18th Century Persianate Biographical Dictionaries
Writing Difference Between Iran and India
Bridging Difference: Kinship, Friendship and the Creation of Social Bonds
The Imprint of History: Sociality and Commemoration between Empires
