Manan Ahmed
Assistant Professor
502 Fayerweather Hall
Phone: (212) 851-0125
Email: ma3179@columbia.edu
Office Hours: Thursday 10am-12pm
Education
Ph.D. – University of Chicago, 2008
B.A.
– Miami University, Ohio 1997
B.A. – Punjab University, 1991
Interests and Research
Manan Ahmed is interested in the relationship between text, space and narrative. His work on Islam’s arrival to Sindh in the 8th century traces the longue durée history of contestations among varied communities in South Asia. His areas of specialization include political and cultural history of Islam in South and Southeast Asia, frontier-spaces and the city in medieval South Asia, imperial and colonial historiography, and philology. He is currently working on a manuscript which takes a close look at the production and reception of Chachnama, a text written in Persian in 1226 C.E. in then capital city of Uch. He is the co-Director of Zunkunftsphilologie: Revisiting the Canons of Textual Scholarship - a multi-year research project based at Freie Universität Berlin.
Courses
Manan Ahmed teaches courses on memory and history, South Asia from medieval to the early modern period, the city and space in medieval India, and intellectual history of Muslims in early modern Asia.
Selected Publications
"Introduction," The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 49, 4 (2012): 455-57
"Advent of Islam in South Asia" in roger Long (edited), History of Pakistan, (Karachi: Oxford University Press) September, 2012
"Future's Past" in Adil Najam (edited) South Asia 2060, (Boston: Pardee Center) September, 2012
Where the Wild Frontiers Are: Pakistan and the American Imagination. Just World Books, 2011