Meghna Chaudhuri James B. Duke Assistant Professor of History

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Davidson College. My research interests include modern South Asia, global political economy and capitalism, social theory and the history of economic thought.

I am currently working on my book A Measure of Value: Global Finance and Making Capitalist Subjects in South Asia, 1830-1950. The book documents how South Asians participated in constituting new subjectivities as forward-thinking, ideal economic subjects as agrarian hinterlands, global financial and physical infrastructures became increasingly bound together. Ultimately, the book argues that finance emerged as the very basis of welfarism and governance in the late nineteenth century, revealing a much longer, and globally interconnected history of financial individuation than afforded by accounts of contemporary neoliberalism.

I believe in work that cuts across disciplinary boundaries and welcome students from a broad range of majors and backgrounds with interests in South Asia, law and global empires, histories of science and intellectual history, capitalism and finance. This year I am teaching: HIS 171: Making Modern South Asia HIS 377: Plagues, Panics and Crisis: A History of Capitalism HIS 271 History of Science and Technology in Modern South Asia HIS 473 In the Bollywood Business: Producing India.

I grew up in Calcutta (now, Kolkata) but think of Delhi and New York City where I spent close to a decade each as home too. Over time, I have nurtured strong parasocial relationships with my favorite tennis players and Bollywood celebrities. No 90’s and 2000s film is not so bad as to be good (we do not speak of the ‘80s).