Career

Dr. Razak Khan is a Research Fel­low in the ERC con­sol­ida­tor grant project “Democ­ra­tis­ing the Fam­i­ly? Gen­der Equal­i­ty, Parental Rights, and Child Wel­fare in Con­tem­po­rary Glob­al His­to­ry” (DEMFAM) at Depart­ment of His­to­ry, Free University,Berlin. He was award­ed a DPhil from the Berlin Grad­u­ate School Mus­lim Cul­tures and Soci­eties (BGSMCS), Freie Uni­ver­sität Berlin in 2014. Sub­se­quent­ly, he was a post­doc­tor­al fel­low at the Cen­tre for the His­to­ry of Emo­tions at the Max Planck Insti­tute for Human Devel­op­ment in Berlin (2014–2015), and at The Erlan­gen Cen­tre for Islam and Law in Europe (EZIRE) at Friedrich–Alexander Uni­ver­si­ty Erlangen–Nürnberg (2019). He has been affil­i­at­ed with The Cen­tre for Mod­ern Indi­an Stud­ies, Goet­tin­gen Uni­ver­si­ty (2015–2024) where he is fin­ish­ing his Habil­i­ta­tion project “Minor Cos­mopoli­tanism: Islam, Urdu, and Emo­tion­al Inte­gra­tion in the Life and Writ­ings of Syed Abid Husain (1896–1978).” His first book, Minor­i­ty Pasts: Local­i­ty, Emo­tions, and Belong­ing in Ram­pur was pub­lished by Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, in 2022. He has also edit­ed The Incom­pa­ra­ble Fes­ti­val. Pen­guin Black Clas­sics,2021 and Nodes of Trans­la­tion: Intel­lec­tu­al His­to­ry between Mod­ern India and Ger­many. De Gruyter, 2024.

He is now work­ing on a new research project “Unfa­mil­iar: Fam­i­ly, Law, and Democ­ra­cy in South Asia.” The project explores colo­nial genealo­gies and post­colo­nial tra­jec­to­ries of debates around minori­ties and fam­i­ly law in India, Pak­istan and Bangladesh. It looks at the inter­sec­tion of reli­gion, gen­der and sex­u­al minori­ties and fam­i­ly law on the issues of mar­riage, adop­tion and inher­i­tance. His wider research inter­ests include ear­ly mod­ern and mod­ern Indi­an his­to­ry, South Asian Islam and Mus­lim cul­tures, Urdu pub­lic cul­tures, affect and archives, com­par­a­tive Indo-Ger­man his­to­ries, his­to­ry of emo­tions and expe­ri­ence, glob­al intel­lec­tu­al and legal history. 

Publications

“Mus­lim House­hold, Nation and Urdu in Tele­vi­sion Dra­mas in Pak­istan.” South Asia, (2023) 46 (3): 521–538.

“Entan­gle­ments in the Colony: Jew­ish-Mus­lim con­nect­ed his­to­ries in Colo­nial India.” Mod­ern Asian Stud­ies, (2022) 56 (6): 1845–1871.

“Place of Knowl­edge: Edu­ca­tion and Urban His­to­ry in Ram­pur.” Max Weber Stiftung India Branch Office and GHI Lon­don Edu­ca­tion and the Urban in India | Work­ing Paper Series 2021/8.

“Minor Cos­mopoli­tanisms: Insti­tu­tions, Intel­lec­tu­als and Ideas between India and
Ger­many.” Com­par­a­tive Stud­ies in South Asia, Africa, and the Mid­dle East, (2020) 40 (2): 291–294.

“Entan­gle­ments of Trans­la­tion: Psy­chol­o­gy, Ped­a­gogy and Youth Reform in Ger­man and
Urdu.” Com­par­a­tive Stud­ies in South Asia, Africa, and the Mid­dle East (2020) 40 (2): 295–308.

“Iqbal, Ger­man Ori­en­tal­ism and Mak­ing of Mod­ern Mys­ti­cism.” Schirin Amir-Moaza­mi eds.
Ori­en­tal­ism at 50. TRAFO, Series, Berlin. 3 August 2020.

“Knowl­edge in Tran­sit: Glob­al Encoun­ters and Trans­for­ma­tion in Mag­nus Hirschfeld´s Trav­el­ogue.” His­to­ry of Knowl­edge Blog, 6 Novem­ber 2019.

“A Fes­ti­val Extra­or­di­naire: An Indo-Islam­ic Poem.” Poet­ry in the Indo-Islam­ic Mil­len­ni­um Blog Post, 24 Feb­ru­ary 2019.

Co-Authored Book Chap­ter. “Trav­el­ers: Trans­for­ma­tive Jour­neys and Emo­tion­al Con­tacts”. In
Ben­no Gam­merl, Philipp Nielsen, and Mar­git Per­nau eds. Encoun­ters with Emo­tions: Nego­ti­at­ing Cul­tur­al Dif­fer­ences since Ear­ly Moder­ni­ty. Berghahn Books, July 2019.

“Entan­gled Insti­tu­tion­al and Affec­tive Archives of South Asian Mus­lim Stu­dents in Ger­many.” MIDA Online Post, 2019.

“Entan­gled Ideas: K. M Ashraf and New Indol­o­gy in the Ger­man Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic.” MIDA Online Post, 2018.

“Prince­ly Archi­tec­tur­al Cos­mopoli­tanism and Urban­i­ty in Ram­pur.” Glob­al Urban His­to­ry Blog, 5
August, 2017.

“Poet­ic Sov­er­eign­ty” Bib­lio: A Review of Books, Oct-Dec, 2017.

“Rethink­ing “Nation­al Cul­ture” of India: An Entan­gled Indo-Ger­man Intel­lec­tu­al His­to­ry.” TRAFO — Blog for Tran­sre­gion­al Research, 16.01.2017.

“The Social Pro­duc­tion of Space and Emo­tions in South Asia.” Jour­nal of Eco­nom­ic and Social
His­to­ry of the Ori­ent, Vol­ume 58, Issue 5, 2015, 611–633.

“Local Pasts: Space, Emo­tions and Iden­ti­ties in Ver­nac­u­lar His­to­ries of Prince­ly Ram­pur.” Jour­nal of the Eco­nom­ic and Social His­to­ry of the Ori­ent, Vol­ume 58, Issue 5, 2015. 693–731.

“The Case of Falling Walls: Pol­i­tics of Demo­li­tion and Preser­va­tion in Ram­pur,” Eco­nom­ic and
Polit­i­cal Week­ly, Vol — XLIX No. 12, March 22, 2014, Web exclu­sive. Repub­lished in EPW, Vol. 49, Issue No.20, May 17, 2014, 25–28.

“Recov­er­ing Minor­i­ty Pasts: New Writ­ings on Mus­lims in South Asia,” South Asia Chron­i­cle, 2, 2012, 375–397.

“Rethink­ing Mus­lim Pol­i­tics: The Ram­puri Expe­ri­ence,” Eco­nom­ic and Polit­i­cal Week­ly, Vol. 44, No. 25, 20 June 2009, 16–18.