Dr. Razak Khan
Dr. Razak Khan is a Research Fellow in the History Research Group at CeMIS, which is headed by Prof. Ravi Ahuja.
He studied Modern Indian History at the University of Delhi and 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, and at The Erlangen Centre for Islam and Law in Europe (EZIRE) at Friedrich–Alexander University Erlangen–Nürnberg. His research interests include early modern and modern Indian history, South Asian Islam and Muslim cultures, Urdu public cultures and archives, history of emotions, comparative Indo-German histories, and global intellectual history.
He is working on his Habilitation project “Minor Cosmopolitanism: 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.
Publications
“Muslim Household, Nation and Urdu in Television Dramas in Pakistan.” South Asia (June 2023).“Entanglements in the Colony: Jewish-Muslim connected histories in Colonial India.” Modern Asian Studies. (March 2022).
“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.