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 46, 3 (2023): pp. 521–538.

“Entan­gle­ments in the Colony: Jew­ish-Mus­lim Con­nect­ed His­to­ries in Colo­nial India”. Mod­ern Asian Stud­ies 56, 6 (2022): pp. 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.

“Intro­duc­tion: Minor Cos­mopoli­tanisms: Insti­tu­tions, Intel­lec­tu­als and Ideas between India and
Ger­many”. Com­par­a­tive Stud­ies in South Asia, Africa, and the Mid­dle East 40, 2 (2020): pp. 291–294. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-8524215.

“Entan­gle­ments of Trans­la­tion: Psy­chol­o­gy, Ped­a­gogy and Youth Reform in Ger­man and
Urdu”. Com­par­a­tive Stud­ies in South Asia, Africa, and the Mid­dle East 40, 2 (2020): pp. 295–308. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-8524226.

“Iqbal, Ger­man Ori­en­tal­ism and Mak­ing of Mod­ern Mys­ti­cism”. TRAFO — Blog for Tran­sre­gion­al Research Series “40 Years After Ori­en­tal­ism”, Berlin, 03.08.2020. Avail­able at https://trafo.hypotheses.org/24680.

“Knowl­edge in Tran­sit: Glob­al Encoun­ters and Trans­for­ma­tion in Mag­nus Hirschfeld´s Trav­el­ogue”. His­to­ry of Knowl­edge Blog, 06.11.2019 (updat­ed 23.08.2024). https://historyofknowledge.hypotheses.org/13116.

“A Fes­ti­val Extra­or­di­naire: An Indo-Islam­ic Poem”. Poet­ry in the Indo-Islam­ic Mil­len­ni­um Blog, 24.02.2019.

with Edgar Cabanas & Jani Mar­ja­nen: “Trav­el­ers: Trans­for­ma­tive Jour­neys and Emo­tion­al Con­tacts”. In: Gam­merl, Ben­no, Philipp Nielsen & Mar­git Per­nau (eds.), Encoun­ters with Emo­tions: Nego­ti­at­ing Cul­tur­al Dif­fer­ences since Ear­ly Moder­ni­ty. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2019, pp. 61–84.

“South Asian Stu­dents in Berlin dur­ing World War I and the Inter­war Peri­od”. MIDA The­mat­ic Resources (2019). https://doi.org/10.25360/01–2022–00044.

“Doc­u­ments Relat­ed to KM Ashraf in the Horst Krüger Col­lec­tions at Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent, Berlin”. MIDA The­mat­ic Resources (2019). https://doi.org/10.25360/01–2022–00043.

“Entan­gle­ments in Colony”. Book Review of Elite Ger­mans in India by Panikos Panayi. Ger­man His­tor­i­cal Insti­tute Lon­don Bul­letin XL, 2 (Novem­ber 2018): pp. 107–111. https://doi.org/10.15463/rec.1121040329.

“Prince­ly Archi­tec­tur­al Cos­mopoli­tanism and Urban­i­ty in Ram­pur”. Glob­al Urban His­to­ry Blog, 05.08.2017. Avail­able at https://globalurbanhistory.com/2017/08/03/princely-architectural-cosmopolitanism-and-urbanity-in-rampur/.

“Poet­ic Sov­er­eign­ty”. Book Review of Atten­dant Lords: Bairam Khan and Abdur Rahim, Courtiers and Poets in Mughal India by T. C. A. Ragha­van. Bib­lio: A Review of Books (Okto­ber-Dezem­ber 2017).

“Rethink­ing „Nation­al Cul­ture“ of India: An Entan­gled Indo-Ger­man Intel­lec­tu­al His­to­ry”. TRAFO – Blog for Tran­sre­gion­al Research, 16.01.2017 (updat­ed 08.12.2022). Avail­able at https://trafo.hypotheses.org/5729.

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

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

“The Case of Falling Walls: Pol­i­tics of Demo­li­tion and Preser­va­tion in Ram­pur”. Eco­nom­ic and
Polit­i­cal Week­ly XLIX, 12 (22.03.2014) Web exclu­sive. Repub­lished in EPW 49, 20 (17.05.2014): pp. 25–28.

“Recov­er­ing Minor­i­ty Pasts: New Writ­ings on Mus­lims in South Asia”. Südasien-Chronik – South Asia Chron­i­cle 5 (2015): pp. 375–397. https://doi.org/10.18452/17973.

“Rethink­ing Mus­lim Pol­i­tics: The Ram­puri Expe­ri­ence”. Eco­nom­ic and Polit­i­cal Week­ly 44, 25 (20.06.2009): pp. 16–18.