Sucheta Mazumdar, Associate Professor

Contact Info:

Office Location:	327 Carr Building
Office Phone:	(919) 684-5490, (919) 684-3014
Email Address:

Education:

PhD	University of California, Los Angeles	1984
MA	University of California, Los Angeles	1977
BA	University of California, Los Angeles	1974

Specialties:

Race and Ethnicity
Medieval and Early Modern History
Comparative Colonial Studies

Research Interests: China and capitalism, consumption and commodity production, transnational circulations of ideas about race, ethnicity and gender.

Current projects: opium, slave, global , trade

Grounded primarily in Chinese history, and secondarily in Indian history, I am excited by the intellectual challenges of writing and teaching comparative global history. Two broad questions frame my research agenda: the radical transformation of circuits of consumption and commodity production that underlie capitalist development, and the politics of this globalization as evidenced in the transnational circulation of ideas about race, and gender. My monograph, "Sugar and Society in China: Peasants, Technology and the World Market (Harvard, 1998), Chinese translation Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 2009) explored the limits to economic breakthrough to capitalist production in the Qing era, by focusing on a quintessential global commodity and investigating the distinctive technological and social trajectories of China, India, and the Americas. I am currently completing a monograph "From the Slave Trade to the Opium Rush: China-America Trade in the Making of the Global World," exploring the connections between American Atlantic slave traders and the India-China trade including the opium trade. In three edited volumes: "Making Waves Writings By and About Asian American Women" (Beacon Press, 1989) and "Antinomies of Modernity, Essays on Race, Orientalism and Nation" (Duke University Press, 2003, Tulika Press Indian edition, 2003), and "From Orientalism to Postcolonialism: Asia-Europe and the Lineages of Difference" (Routledge, 2009) I have focused on the identity politics of race and gender in the Chinese and Indian diaspora, and the making of civilizational discourse-based identity politics. I was the co-founder and co-editor with Vasant Kaiwar of two international interdisciplinary journals in the social sciences and humanities, "South Asia Bulletin" (1981-1991) and "Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East" [CSSAAME], 1992-2001.

Keywords:

China, • India • Asian American • globalization • race, • ethnicity • gender.

Curriculum Vitae

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Sucheta Mazumdar, 1. From Orientalism to Postcolonialism: Asia-Europe and the Lineages of Difference Sucheta Mazumdar, Vasant Kaiwar and Thierry Labica eds., (Routledge, UK, 2009) (2009)
2. Sucheta Mazumdar, 2. Zhongguo: Tangye yu shehui (nongmin, jishu he shijie shichang (Guangdong Renmin chubanshe, 2009) (2009)
3. Sucheta Mazumdar, Empire and Migration: The Making of a Transnational World” essay entry for Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier eds., Dictionary of Transnational History, (Palgrave-Macmillan Press, 2009) pp. 319-325. (2009)
4. Sucheta Mazumdar, 2. “China and the Global Atlantic: Sugar from the Age of Columbus to Pepsi-Coke and Ethanol” Food and Foodways, Special Issue on Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power, 16.2 (2008) pp. 135-147 (2009)
5. Sucheta Mazumdar, “Localities of the Global: Asian Migrations between Slavery and Citizenship” in International Journal of Social Science History 52 (2007), pp. 124-133. (2009)

Duke Today
http://news.duke.edu/2009/10/sucheta.html