Sucheta Mazumdar, Associate Professor

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.

Contact Info:

Office Location:	226 Carr Bldg, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone:	(919) 684-5490
Email Address:

Teaching (Fall 2019):

• HISTORY 135.01, SILK ROADS AND CHINA Synopsis

  East Duke 204D, TuTh 01:25 PM-02:40 PM

  (also cross-listed as AMES 207.01, MEDREN 135.01, RELIGION 181.01)

• HISTORY 454S.01, CAP SEM: GLOBALIZATION ASIA Synopsis

  Friedl Bdg 216, Tu 04:40 PM-07:10 PM

  (also cross-listed as AAAS 407S.01, AMES 437S.01, GSF 412S.01, ICS 412S.01)

Education:

Ph.D.	University of California at Los Angeles	1984
MA	University of California, Los Angeles	1977
BA	University of California, Los Angeles	1974

Specialties:

African, Middle East and Asia
Gender
Global Transnational History
Women, Gender and Sexuality
Global and Comparative

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:

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

Curriculum Vitae

Current Ph.D. Students  

• Nilanjana Dutta  

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Mazumdar, S, The Race of Civilizations in the Age of Globalization: The Chindia Problematic, in Nationalism and Imperialism in South and Southeast Asia: Essays in Honour of Damodar R. SarDesai, edited by Long, R; Kaminski, A (2012), Manohar Publishers, New Delhi  [abs]
2. Mazumdar, S, Locating China in Global History: Politics and Paradigms from the Cold War to the Beijing Olympics (2012)  [abs]
3. Mazumdar, S; Kaiwar, V; Labica, T, From Orientalism to Postcolonialism: Asia, Europe and the lineages of difference, From Orientalism to Postcolonialism: Asia, Europe and the Lineages of Difference, vol. 9780203872314 (September, 2009), pp. 1-244, Routledge, ISBN 0203872312 [doi]  [abs]
4. Kaiwar, V; Mazumdar, S, The coordinates of orientalism: Reflections on the universal and the particular (September, 2009), pp. 19-42, ISBN 0203872312 [doi]
5. Mazumdar, S; Kaiwar, V; Labica, T, Introduction: From Orientalism to Postcolonialism: Asia, Europe and the lineages of difference (September, 2009), pp. 1-15, ISBN 0203872312 [doi]

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