Career

Positions/Qualifications

Since 07/2023 Prin­ci­pal Inves­ti­ga­tor Leib­niz Col­lab­o­ra­tive Excel­lence Project: Craft­ing Entan­gle­ments: Afro-Asian Pasts of the Glob­al Cold War (CRAFTE)

Since 11/2020      Research Fel­low, Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent, Berlin

09/2019 — 10/2020      Mater­ni­ty Leave

11/2017 — 10/2020      Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, Depart­ment of South Asian Stud­ies, Insti­tute for Asian and African Stud­ies, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin and Research Fel­low at Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent, Berlin.

11/2015 — 10/2017      Post-Doc­tor­al Fel­low, DFG-Fund­ed Research Project ‘Mod­ern India in Ger­man Archives, 1706–1989’ (Mod­ernes Indi­en in deutschen Archiv­en, 1706–1989), Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent (ZMO), Berlin.

11/2014 — 10/2015      Post-Doc­tor­al Fel­low, DFG-Fund­ed Research Project ‘Mod­ern India in Ger­man Archives, 1706–1989’ at the Insti­tute for Asian and African Stud­ies, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin (50%) and Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent, Berlin (50%).

Profile

Since 2019      Edi­tor (with Dr. Heike Liebau) of the MIDA Archival Reflex­i­con, an open-access online Archival Guide, which is a plat­form for the­o­ret­i­cal and con­cep­tu­al reflec­tions on archival architectures/organizing log­ics as well as the­mat­ic con­tri­bu­tions on India-relat­ed hold­ings of spe­cif­ic Ger­man archives and MIDA The­mat­ic Resources

Since 2016      The­sis super­vi­sion of BA and MA stu­dents’ the­ses at the Insti­tute for  Asian and African Stud­ies, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin.

2017 – 2019      Mem­ber of Edi­to­r­i­al Board, South Asia Chron­i­cle, a bilin­gual open-access journal.

2017 – 2019      Organ­ised the Hum­boldt India Project (HIP) Work­shops and HIP Lec­tures at the Insti­tute for Asian and African Stud­ies (4 work­shops every aca­d­e­m­ic year).

2012 – 2019      Reg­u­lar teach­ing. Cours­es offered for BA (in Asian and African Stud­ies) and MA (Mod­ern South- and South­east Asian Stud­ies, Glob­al Stud­ies Pro­gramme) at Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin

2009 – 2012      Reg­u­lar teach­ing. BA (Depart­ments of Soci­ol­o­gy and Indol­o­gy) and MA (Eras­mus Mundus Glob­al Stud­ies) Leipzig Universität.

Ongo­ing      Habil­i­ta­tion (in prepa­ra­tion of the Ger­man Pro­fes­so­r­i­al Exam): Entan­gled Pres­ences: Cul­tur­al Actors, sites and prac­tices in India and the Ger­man Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic dur­ing the Cold War

Education

2014      PhD, Glob­al Stud­ies, Fac­ul­ty of Social Sci­ences and Phi­los­o­phy, Leipzig Uni­ver­sität, The­sis ‘Speak­ing’ the Nation: (E)merging faces of eco­nom­ic reforms and sec­u­lar­ism in the rhetoric of India’s Prime Min­is­ters, 1991–2011’

2006 — 2008      MA Eras­mus Mundus Glob­al Stud­ies, Uni­ver­si­ty of Vien­na and Leipzig University

2002 — 2006      BA Polit­i­cal Sci­ence (Hon­ours), Del­hi University

Awards and Scholarships

DAAD ‘A New Pas­sage to India’ Schol­ar­ship, 2014, vis­it­ing researcher to the Cen­tre for Eco­nom­ic Stud­ies and Plan­ning, Jawa­har­lal Nehru Uni­ver­si­ty, New Delhi.

DAAD Schol­ar­ship Doc­tor­al Stud­ies, 2009–2013.

Eras­mus Mundus Schol­ar­ship, Euro­pean Union, 2006–2008, for pur­su­ing MA in Glob­al Stud­ies (Uni­ver­si­ties of Leipzig and Vienna)

Gee­ta Chopra Memo­r­i­al Schol­ar­ship, 2006, for hold­ing first posi­tion in BA Polit­i­cal Sci­ence (Hon­ours) (2003–06), Jesus and Mary Col­lege, Uni­ver­si­ty of Delhi

Key activities

The research project “Entan­gled Wave­lengths. Translo­cal affect and affil­i­a­tion among radio broad­cast­ers and lis­ten­ers of Ger­man inter­na­tion­al radio sta­tions in Cold War India, 1964–1990” inves­ti­gates the mutu­al entan­gle­ments of the cul­tur­al, polit­i­cal, and affec­tive radio­phon­ic reper­toires devised by the two icon­ic Ger­man inter­na­tion­al broad­cast­ing ser­vices, Radio Berlin Inter­na­tion­al from the Ger­man Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic (GDR) and Deutsche Welle from the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many (FRG), dur­ing the Cold War years in India. Rather than lim­it­ing these entwined, often com­pet­ing, tra­jec­to­ries of the two radio sta­tions to a reduc­tive com­par­i­son, the Indi­an per­spec­tive promis­es to reveal their com­plex his­to­ries as entan­gled and over­lap­ping. How did India become a site for son­i­cal­ly map­ping Cold War affil­i­a­tions, and how did Indi­an actors respond to, prof­i­teer from, and even co-shape inter-Ger­man com­pet­i­tive acoustic pres­ences in the transna­tion­al space of radio broad­casts? The project probes into the inter­sti­tial affec­tive spaces made of voic­es, ears and postal feed­back, between the micro­phones in Bonn and East Berlin and local radio sets in India. It traces the translo­cal tra­jec­to­ries of entan­gle­ments among actors from the GDR, FRG and India and how short waves trig­gered the imag­i­na­tion of lis­ten­ers in sub-urban/rur­al India to per­form lived local inter­na­tion­alisms. Radio fan clubs thus insert­ed them­selves in the wider glob­al pol­i­tics of a Cold War-torn world by stag­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with one or the oth­er voice in the Cold War. The project is inter­dis­ci­pli­nary in dif­fer­ent regards: it mobilis­es both his­tor­i­cal and anthro­po­log­i­cal meth­ods includ­ing archival, oral his­tor­i­cal and ethno­graph­ic research. It thus promis­es to com­bine and engage with the­o­ret­i­cal debates from the fields of Cold War his­to­ry, the his­to­ry of emo­tions and a his­tor­i­cal anthro­pol­o­gy of mate­r­i­al culture.

Publications

Monographs/Edited Volumes

• (Ed.) Cor­dial Cold War: Cul­tur­al Actors in India and the Ger­man Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic, Octo­ber 2021. Lon­don, New Del­hi, et. al.: Sage Pub­li­ca­tions. Open-Access: https://spectrum.sagepub.in/book/cordial-cold-war-anandita-bajpai-9789354790225/6.
• ‘Speak­ing’ the Nation: The Ora­tor­i­cal Mak­ing of Sec­u­lar, Neo-lib­er­al India. New Del­hi: Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2018.
• The Catholic Church as an Edu­ca­tion Provider in Puer­to Rico 1948–1960. VDM Pub­lish­ers, 2009.

Chapters/Articles in Edited Volumes/Journals

• “Objects of Love: Remem­ber­ing Radio Berlin Inter­na­tion­al in India.” In: The GDR Tomor­row: Rethink­ing the East Ger­man Lega­cy. E. Emery, M. Hines and E. Preuß, Hg. Oxford: Peter Lang, 279–310.
• “Friend­ship through Ether Waves: Radio Berlin Inter­na­tion­al and its Lis­ten­ing Publics in India”, Inter­na­tionale Forschungsstelle DDR, 4 Octo­ber 2023, 16 pp. Avail­able at: https://ifddr.org/en/friendship-through-ether-waves/
• “Mate­r­i­al Lives of Cold War Radio Pasts in India”, His­tor­i­cal Jour­nal of Film, Radio and Tele­vi­sion, 2023, 34 pp. DOI: 10.1080/01439685.2023.2256128
• “‘Mat­ters of the Heart’: The Sen­ti­men­tal Indi­an Prime Min­is­ter on All India Radio”, in: Bar­bara Christophe, Christophe Kohl, Heike Liebau, and Achim Saupe (eds.), The Pol­i­tics of Authen­tic­i­ty and Pop­ulist Dis­cours­es: Media and Edu­ca­tion in Brazil, India and Ukraine. Octo­ber 2021. New Del­hi: Pal­grave Macmillan. 
• “Cor­dial Cold War: Actors, Sites and Prac­tices of Cul­tur­al Entan­gle­ment”, in: Baj­pai, A (ed.), Cor­dial Cold War: Cul­tur­al Actors in India and the Ger­man Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic, Octo­ber 2021. Lon­don, New Del­hi, et. al.: Sage Publications.
• “Warm Wave­lengths: Radio Berlin Inter­na­tion­al in India dur­ing the Cold War”, in: Baj­pai, A (ed.), Cor­dial Cold War: Cul­tur­al Actors in India and the Ger­man Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic, Octo­ber 2021. Lon­don, New Del­hi, et. al.: Sage Publications.
• “Mak­ing the New Indi­an Cit­i­zen in times of the Jawan (Sol­dier) and the Kisan (Farmer), 1962–65”, in: K. Bromber and J. Kreis (eds.) Spe­cial Issue, “Shap­ing the New Man in Africa, Asia and the Mid­dle East: Prac­tices, Net­works and Mobi­liza­tion (1940s-1960s)”, Com­par­a­tiv, 28 (5): 2018, pp. 97–120.
• “Von Ken­nt­nis zur Anerken­nung: Fre­und­schafts­ge­sellschaften an der Schnittstelle poli­tis­ch­er und kul­tureller Beziehun­gen zwis­chen Indi­en und der DDR, 1952–1972”, in: Klein­schmidt, C. and Ziegler, D. (eds.), Deutsche Außen­poli­tik und Außen­wirtschafts­beziehun­gen im Zeital­ter des Kalten Krieges, 2018. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 211–230.
• “Revis­it­ing Par­ti­tion Sev­en­ty Years Lat­er: Of Lay­ered Echoes, Voic­es and Mem­o­ries”, Spe­cial Issue Edi­tor, South Asia Chron­i­cle, 7: 2017 (with Maria Framke), pp. 1–20.
• Baj­pai, A., “Intro­duc­ing the MIDA Archival Reflex­i­con: Objec­tives and New Avenues”, MIDA Archival Reflex­i­con, 2018.
• Baj­pai, A., “Trac­ing, Cat­a­logu­ing, Index­ing: Reflec­tions on the Joachim and Petra Hei­drich papers in the Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent Archive”, MIDA Archival Reflex­i­con, 2018.
• Baj­pai, A., Hey­mann, J. and Sus­ki, T., “Trac­ing India in Ger­man Archives: Entan­gled Pasts in the age of Dig­i­tal Human­i­ties” in: South Asia Chron­i­cle, 6: 2016, pp. 289–314.
• “‘Speak­ing’ the Nation Sec­u­lar: (E)merging Faces of India”, in: Buchardt, M., Mid­dell, M., Wohlrahb Sahr, M. (eds.), Mul­ti­ple Sec­u­lar­i­ties Beyond the West: Reli­gion and Moder­ni­ty in the Glob­al Age, 2015. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 39–61.
• “Inau­gur­al Work­shop of the DFG-spon­sored Research Project Mod­ern India in Ger­man Archives”, 1706–1989, in: South Asia Chron­i­cle, 5: 2015, pp. 480–93.
• “Imag­in­ing a ‘Sec­u­lar’ India: Roots, Off­shoots and Future Tra­jec­to­ries of the Sec­u­lar­ism Debate in India”, in: South Asia Chron­i­cle, 2: 2012, pp. 189–218.
• “Homi K. Bhab­ha”, in: Math­ias Mid­dell and Ulf Engel (eds.), The­o­retik­er der Glob­al­isierung, Leipzig: Leipzig Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2010.

Editor

• Co-Edi­tor (with Dr. Heike Liebau) of MIDA Archival Reflex­i­con, open-access archival guide. https://www.projekt-mida.de/rechercheportal/reflexicon/
• Co-Edi­tor (with Dr. Heike Liebau) of MIDA The­mat­ic Resources, open-access con­stituent of MIDA Research Por­tal. https://www.projekt-mida.de/en/research-portal/thematic-resources/

Conferences/Papers (Selected)

Orga­ni­za­tion (Con­fer­ences and Work­shops) 2018 — 2019

• Orga­nized the Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence “The Pol­i­tics of ‘Doing’ Cul­ture: Entan­gled India and the Ger­man Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic dur­ing the Cold War Years, Insti­tute for Asian and African Stud­ies, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin (in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Leib­niz- Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent), Decem­ber 21–22, 2018.
• Orga­nized the 10^th Hum­boldt India Project (HIP) Lec­ture with­in the HIP Lec­ture Series, Guest Speak­er Prof. P.R. Kumaraswamy, Jawa­har­lal Nehru Uni­ver­si­ty, New Del­hi, “Modi Turns West: India and the Per­sian Gulf”, Insti­tute for Asian and African Stud­ies, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin, Novem­ber 29, 2018.
• Orga­nized the 27^th Inter­na­tion­al Hum­boldt India Project (HIP) Work­shop, with invit­ed speak­ers from Kath­man­du, Berlin, New Del­hi and Pots­dam, Insti­tute for Asian and African Stud­ies, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin, Decem­ber 7, 2018.
• Orga­nized the 28^th Inter­na­tion­al Hum­boldt India Project (HIP) Work­shop, with invit­ed speak­ers from Göt­tin­gen, Berlin and Kansas (USA), Insti­tute for Asian and African Stud­ies, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin, Feb­ru­ary 8, 2018.
• Orga­nized the 29^th Inter­na­tion­al Hum­boldt India Project (HIP) Work­shop, with invit­ed speak­ers from Berlin, Dres­den, Växjö (Swe­den), Insti­tute for Asian and African Stud­ies, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin, April 26, 2019.
• Orga­nized the 12^th Hum­boldt India Project (HIP) Lec­ture with­in the HIP Lec­ture Series, Guest Speak­er Sarover Zai­di, Jin­dal School of Art and Archi­tec­ture, Soni­pat, Haryana, “Of Fly­overs and Mus­lim Mohal­las: Map­ping the polit­i­cal Hori­zons of Bom­bay”, Insti­tute for Asian and African Stud­ies, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin, June 21, 2019.

Lectures/Papers at Workshops

2018–Present

• Warm Wave­lengths: Radio Berlin Inter­na­tion­al dur­ing the Cold War in India, Paper pre­sent­ed at Closed Read­ing Work­shop of the Emmy Nöther Reasearch Group, Reach­ing the Peo­ple: New His­to­ries of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Cen­tre for Glob­al His­to­ry, Freie Uni­ver­sität, Berlin, Jan­u­ary 11, 2021.
• Fall­en and Hid­den Icons: Stat­ues as Con­test­ed sites of mem­o­ry mak­ing in India, Paper pre­sent­ed at the Work­shop ‘Con­test­ed Reli­gious Spaces: Nar­ra­tives as Evi­dencxe: De-cen­ter­ing and Re-Authen­ti­cat­ing Pasts for the Future’, ZMO, Novem­ber 30, 2020.
• Ger­man Archives, Cold War and Media, Paper pre­sent­ed at the Work­shop ‘Decide for Your­self? GDR News­reels and their Images of India’, orga­nized by MIDA Project, ZMO, Berlin, Novem­ber 19, 2020.
• The Indi­an Elec­tions of 2019, Lec­ture deliv­ered as part of the series ‘Why do Elec­tions Mat­ter?’, Insti­tute for Asian and African Stud­ies, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin and Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent, Berlin, June 3, 2019.
• From Nation Build­ing to Nation Brand­ing: The arc of Nationalism(s) and Nation­al Iden­ti­fi­ca­tions in India, Insti­tute for Asian and African Stud­ies, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin, May 28, 2019.
• India relat­ed hold­ings in the Ger­man Archival Land­scape, Paper pre­sent­ed at the Inter­na­tion­al Work­shop Cul­tures of Archival Research in India and Ger­many, Mar­burg Uni­ver­si­ty, Mar­burg and Berlin, May 15–21, 2019.
• Intro­duc­ing the MIDA Archival Reflex­i­con, Pre­sen­ta­tion at the Launch of the MIDA Project, Leib­niz- Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent, May 11, 2019.
• The Sound of Friend­ship: Warm Wave­lengths of Radio Berlin Inter­na­tion­al dur­ing the Cold War in India, Lec­ture deliv­ered at the Cen­tre for Con­cur­rences in Colo­nial and Post­colo­nial Stud­ies, Lin­naeus Uni­ver­si­ty, Växjö, Swe­den, April 11, 2019.
• Ola India! Nav­i­gat­ing trust and dis/mistrust with India’s new Taxi App, Paper pre­sent­ed at Inter­na­tion­al Work­shop Gov­er­nance and Process­es of Bureau­cra­ti­za­tion, Leipzig, Jan­u­ary 31-Feb­ru­ary 1, 2019.
• Mann Ki Baat (Mat­ters of the Heart): The Affec­tive-Sen­ti­men­tal Indi­an Prime Min­is­ter on All India Radio, Paper pre­sent­ed at Inter­na­tion­al Work­shop Pop­ulist Dis­course and Claims to Authen­tic­i­ty in Brazil, India and Ukraine, Braun­schweig, Novem­ber 8–9, 2018.
• Speak­ing the Nation: The Ora­tor­i­cal Mak­ing of Sec­u­lar, Neo-lib­er­al India, Lec­ture at Jin­dal Glob­al Law School, O.P. Jin­dal Uni­ver­si­ty, Soni­pat, India, Sep­tem­ber 18, 2018.
• Speak­ing the Nation: The Ora­tor­i­cal Mak­ing of Sec­u­lar India, Lec­ture at Jesus and Mary Col­lege, Del­hi Uni­ver­si­ty, India, Sep­tem­ber 14, 2018.
• Speak­ing the Nation: Prime Min­is­ters and the mak­ing of neo-lib­er­al India since 1991, Paper pre­sent­ed at the 25th Euro­pean Con­fer­ence on South Asian Stud­ies (ECSAS) Paris, France, July 24–27, 2018.

2016–2017 (Select­ed)

• Who Steers the Wheel? Taxi Dri­vers and bureau­crat­ic Tech­nolo­gies in Sene­gal and India, Paper pre­sent­ed (with Peter Lam­bertz) at the Insti­tute col­lo­qui­um of the Insti­tute for Asian and African Stud­ies, Hum­boldt Uni­ver­si­ty, Berlin, July, 18, 2017.
• From Nation Build­ing to Nation Brand­ing: Nationalism(s) in India, Pub­lic Lec­ture deliv­ered at the Depart­ment of Social Anthro­pol­o­gy (in con­sor­tium with San­skrit Stud­ies and Indol­o­gy depart­ments) Mainz Uni­ver­si­ty, with­in the lec­ture series ‘South Asia on the Move’, Mainz, June 12, 2017.
• Between East Berlin and New Del­hi: Mutu­al­ly Entan­gled Tra­jec­to­ries of Uni­ver­si­ty Intel­lec­tu­als 1952–72, Novem­ber 13, 2016, His­to­ry Depart­ment, New York Uni­ver­si­ty, Abu Dhabi.
• Sicht­bar wer­den. Um Anerken­nung wer­ben: Die ‚Kul­tur­poli­tik der DDR – Indi­en Beziehun­gen, 1952–1972, 51. Deutsch­er His­torik­ertag in Ham­burg 2016, Ver­band der His­torik­er und His­torik­erin­nen Deutsch­lands e.V. (VHD) Ger­man His­tor­i­cal Con­fer­ence, Sep­tem­ber 22, 2016.

Film Project

Octo­ber 2021, The Sound of Friend­ship: Warm Wave­lengths in a Cold, Cold War?

• (Direc­tion, Archival Research, Sto­ry, Co-Pro­duc­tion– Anan­di­ta Baj­pai /Camera and Cin­e­matog­ra­phy– Daniel Gatz­ma­ga, Cam­era and con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion– Jyoth­idaas KV, co-pro­duc­tion ZMO)
• Offi­cial Trail­er: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4qLiM_jflw

Teaching (Selected)

Sum­mer Semes­ter 2019

• From Nation build­ing to Nation Brand­ing: New Nationalism(s) in India, Uni­ver­sität Wien (Eras­mus Exchange Teach­ing Res­i­den­cy) The Par­ti­tion of British India: 1947 and the After­lives of Mate­r­i­al Objects, State dis­cours­es and Oral His­to­ries, HU Berlin Con­sumed & Con­sum­ing: Of Gods, Jobs, Sex­u­al­i­ties, Bod­ies in Neolib­er­al India, HU Berlin

Win­ter Semes­ter 2018–19

• Intro­duc­tion to Area Stud­ies, HU Berlin Trac­ing India in a Berlin Archive (with Dr. Heike Liebau at Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent, Berlin), HU Berlin

Sum­mer Semes­ter 2018

• The Ide­al Cit­i­zen of the Cold War: Per­spec­tives from India (with Dr. Franziska Roy at Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent, Berlin), HU Berlin

Win­ter Semes­ter 2017–18

• Trac­ing India in a Berlin Archive (Bilin­gual course in Ger­man and Eng­lish for Meth­ods Mod­ule) (with Dr. Heike Liebau at Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent, Berlin), HU Berlin From Nation build­ing to Nation Brand­ing: New Nationalism(s) in India, HU Berlin Intro­duc­tion to Area Stud­ies, HU Berlin

Sum­mer Semes­ter 2017

• Bureau­cra­cy in/and the Indi­an City: Red Tape Webs and the Clean India Cam­paigns, HU Berlin From Nation build­ing to Nation Brand­ing: New Nationalism(s) in India, HU Berlin

Win­ter Semes­ter 2016–17

• Spuren­suche – Indi­en in Berlin­er Archiv­en /Traces of India in Berlin’s Archives (Bilin­gual course with Frank Drauschke, Facts and Files, Berlin), HU Berlin Under­stand­ing the lan­guages of new nationalism(s) in India: An Intro­duc­tion to Crit­i­cal Dis­course Analy­sis, HU Berlin