Harald Fischer-Tiné | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) (original) (raw)

Papers by Harald Fischer-Tiné

Journal of Global History, 2024

Around 20 cyclists from India embarked on long and arduous intercontinental journeys between 1923... more Around 20 cyclists from India embarked on long and arduous intercontinental journeys between 1923 and 1942 individually or in groups. Many of these 'globe cyclists', as they were often referred to by the Indian press, later wrote media articles and longer travelogues about their expeditions. This article examines the narratives of these long-distance cycling expeditions to argue that these journeys can illuminate new histories of the bicycle's socio-cultural impact beyond the West, the self-fashioning of Indian cyclotourists as an example of complicit masculinity, and world tours as a novel form of anti-imperial counter-mobility. It does so by drawing on several historiographical subfields that have hitherto rarely been mobilized together, namely the histories of sports, masculinity, colonialism and decolonization, tourism, and (everyday) technology. The article focuses pars pro toto on the tours of Adi Hakim, Jal Bapasola, and Rustom Bhumgara (1923-1928) and Ramnath Biswas (1931-1940) that were strongly over-determined by the contexts of colonialism, anti-colonialism, and decolonisation, while nationalist masculinity represented another recurring trope.

Asian Review of World Histories, 2017

Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 2022

The Bombay Talkies Limited, 2021

European Seamen as a Problem of Colonial Identity and Order in Calcutta of the 1860s The relation... more European Seamen as a Problem of Colonial Identity and Order in Calcutta of the 1860s The relationship between the wealthier part of British India's white society and the infamous seaman 'Jack Tar' was ambiguous. In the eyes of the colonial administration the seamen's alleged lack of discipline and 'reckless and irrational ways' brought them close to the 'uncivilised natives'. This was a fact regarded as highly disturbing in a colonial setting based on the ideology of racial difference and — at least partly — informed by notions of a civilising mission supposedly entrusted to the British by providence. The problems arising from their presence in Indian seaport towns could not be easily solved by the 'politics of making invisible', as their labour was vital to the empire. Their position was therefore a highly ambivalent one, vacillating between inclusion and exclusion into the fold of 'respectable' white colonial society. In certain cont...

The article explores Asianist discourses that emerged in India from the late9th century through t... more The article explores Asianist discourses that emerged in India from the late9th century through the first decade after independence. The first section gives a general overview of the various historical stages of the Indian involvement with Asia during the period under survey as expressed in the writings and speeches of leading intellectuals and politicians. The second section analyses in greater detail three of the most important discursive constructions of a pan-Asian identity from the interwar period: Rabindranath Tagore's influential anti-modernist conception of 'Asia as spiritual counter-Europe'; the powerful trope of Asia as 'Greater India', that gained particular popularity among Hindu nationalist outfits; and the pragmatic and modernist concept of Young Asia', that posited a pan-Asian solidarity as a strategic device in the fight against Western imperialism. With the possible exception of the 'Young Asia' model, it is argued by way of conclusio...

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2021

This introductory essay provides an overview of the main subfields of research into the histories... more This introductory essay provides an overview of the main subfields of research into the histories of foodstuffs, diet and nutrition in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Asia, thus situating the contributions to this themed special section in wider historiographical debates and controversies. It argues that the bulk of existing research has focused either on the conflictual role of food and diet in the colonial encounter, or on the emergence of nutritional sciences in India (and in the countries providing food aid to India) during the post-colonial phase in response to the protracted recurrence of food scarcity in the subcontinent. It subsequently identifies a research lacuna by pointing to the conspicuous absence of historical studies on Dalits and food in spite of the topic’s obvious relevance for the creation and maintenance of social hierarchies. The article ends with short previews of the individual essays assembled in this collection.

The cultural history of youth, Vol. 5, 2023

3.4 Printer and his apprentice, putting on the ink on the pre-made etched stone, 1876 68 3.5 The ... more 3.4 Printer and his apprentice, putting on the ink on the pre-made etched stone, 1876 68 3.5 The Shepherdess, by Jean Francois Millet, 1864 71 3.6 Cotton spinning at Dean Mills, Manchester, 1851 74 4.1 Cricket match between Eton and Winchester at the Winchester public school, c. 1864 84 4.2 Elite sports as spaces of interracial encounter: mixed polo team in Hyderabad, India, c. 1890 87 4.3 Turnen (calisthenics) instruction at a school for "natives" in Tanga, German East Africa, c. 1910 89 4.4 Hurling match organized by the GAA in Dublin's Croke Park Stadium, c. 1921 91 4.5 Masculinity check?-YMCA-trained "physical director" with Indian College Student, c. 1920 94 4.6 This card accompanied a lantern slide show on the YMCA's International youth work in the 1920s. The purpose of such cards was to remind the presenter of the messages he or she was expected to convey to the audience with each picture 95 5.1 Emile, from Jean Jacques Rousseau's Emile, or On Education. Here Emile is seen with his wife to be, Sophie. From Les Maitres De La Sensibilite Francaise Au Xviii Siecle. 107 5.2 A coster boy and girl tossing the pieman in a market, London, England. From a daguerreotype by Beard. From London Labour and London Poor by Henry Mayhew (an illustrated report in Morning Chronicle in 1849; in book form in several editions up to 1865) 112 6.1 Enslaved people in Zanzibar, including children and youth, c. 1880 121 9781350033054_txt_prf.indd 8 30-06-2022 15:37:22 ILLUSTRATIONS ix 6.2 Color print depicting two men of African descent (presumably slaves) wearing blue and red uniforms, but no shoes, carrying poles supporting a small red and black litter or sedan chair, with a white woman peering out, a small boy in uniform walks ahead of the party, with urban buildings and a paved square in the background, from the volume "

The Routledge Handbook of the History of Colonialism in South Asia, 2022

There is perhaps no better example to illustrate a particularly striking variety of the manifold ... more There is perhaps no better example to illustrate a particularly striking variety of the manifold transnational entanglements that characterise South Asia's recent past than the history of the subcontinental fi lm industry under the Raj. Although border-crossing interaction, transcultural cross-fertilisation, and global circulation play a key role in this story, fi lm critics and cultural historians have time and again pointed to the unique cultural coding of movies produced in the subcontinent, positing their quintessentially 'Indian' character. 1 Even though this kind of cultural essentialism is always problematic, the momentous impact South Asian cultural and historical specifi cities had on the modes of production and content of popular Indian drama and cinema can hardly be denied. After all, we are talking about a cinematic industry whose products drew heavily on local cultural repositories such as religious epics and motives inspired by regional history. Besides, it catered overwhelmingly to a domestic market during the fi rst fi ve decades of its existence. The topic thus off ers a unique opportunity to analyse how the complex interplay between domestic and colonial cultural, political, and economic constellations and developments, on the one hand, and broader global factors, on the other, led to the creation of an idiosyncratic and strikingly original form of cultural expression and mass cultural consumption. This chapter provides a survey of the development of 'Bombay' cinema with a short excursion to its theatrical predecessor, so-called 'Parsi theatre'. The term 'Bombay cinema' refers to the fi lm industry set in today's Mumbai, specialised in producing 'commercial' feature fi lms. Whereas silent movies were exhibited to a pan-Indian audience, most Bombay fi lm producers focused on movies with dialogue in an accessible Hindi/ Hindustani after the introduction of the 'talkie' (or sound fi lm) in the early 1930s. Simultaneously, they integrated Hindustani song sequences into their (often melodramatic) narrative plots. 2 That the focus on the Hindi cinema is a pars pro toto approach needs to be emphasised. Right from the beginning of the talkie era, there were vibrant Bengali and Marathi fi lm industries. 3 At the same time, movies in the Dravidian languages of the south, such as Tamil and Telugu, were extremely popular in their respective language communities, and continued to be so even after the meteoric rise of 'Bollywood' in independent India. 4

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2021

and longstanding executive director of the university's South Asia Institute. In addition, throug... more and longstanding executive director of the university's South Asia Institute. In addition, through countless interviews in the media and a number of non-academic publications targeted at a broad readership, he was known to a wider public in Germany as an expert on South Asia. On yet another level, Dietmar Rothermund served the cause of fostering interest in the Indian subcontinent and its history as a networker, institution builder and academic manager both in his native Germany and internationally. A long and prolific career Dietmar Rothermund was born on 20 January 1933, precisely at the juncture when Germany was about to enter the darkest phase of its history. He started his studies of history and philosophy in Marburg and Munich in the 1950s, during the dull, early postWar era, when the shadows of the Hitler regime were still looming large over most walks of German life-including academia-although very few people talked about it. Thus, for instance, the Nazi past of Rothermund's later mentor, the prominent social historian Werner Conze (1910-86), became a matter of public debate only in the 1990s, more than a decade after Conze's death. 1 It was from this constraining intellectual climate of the Adenauer era that Dietmar Rothermund escaped to the University of Pennsylvania on a Fulbright fellowship in 1956. While in Philadelphia, his interest in American history grew more intense, which led him to stay on and write a PhD thesis on the interplay between religion and politics in mid eighteenth-century Pennsylvania. After the publication of the book based on his thesis, 2 Rothermund seemed to be on track for a career as a specialist in US history. It was rather by coincidence that on his return to Germany in 1959, a stipend from the German Research

South Asia: Journal of South Asian History, 2021

preading Protestant Modernity: Global Perspectives on the Work of the YMCA and the YWCA, 1889 – 1970, edited by Fischer-​Tiné, Harald, Huebner, Stefan and Tyrrell, Ian, pp. 1-​36, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, , 2020

Journal of Asian Studies, 2020

Empires and Boundaries Race, Class, and Gender in Colonial Settings, ed, H. Fischer-Tiné & Susanne Gehrmann (London: Routledge), 2008

Modern Asian Studies, 25 Sep , 2018

Focusing particularly on the Madras College of Physical Education opened in 1919, this article re... more Focusing particularly on the Madras College of Physical Education opened in 1919, this article reconstructs the role of the United States of America-dominated Indian Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in the spread of physical-education schemes in South Asia between the beginning of the century and the outbreak of the Second World War. American YMCA secretaries stressed the scientific, liberal, and egalitarian character of their 'physical programme' aiming at the training of responsible and self-controlled citizens and therefore supposedly offering an alternative to British imperial sports. The study demonstrates that the Y indeed exercised a considerable influence by acting as adviser to provincial and 'princely' governments as well as through the graduates of the Madras College of Physical Education (MCPE), many of whom became physical directors in educational institutions in India, Burma, Ceylon and other Asian countries. At the same time, it also makes clear that North American models could not be transplanted in a simple or straightforward manner to South Asian contexts. For one, in spite of its representation as a 'school for democracy', the Y's supposedly inclusive and emancipatory discourses and practices of physical fitness remained over-determined by the powerful influences of the colonial discourse of race, and the programme of the Indian Y continued to be rife with the imperial tropes Ligtenberg as well as Modern Asian Studies' anonymous reviewers for reading earlier drafts and making valuable suggestions for the improvement of the text.

The article contributes to the global history of the First World War and the history of ‘imperia... more The article contributes to the global history of
the First World War and the history of ‘imperial
humanitarianism’ by taking stock of the Indian Young Men’s
Christian Association’s Army Work schemes in South Asia,
Europe and the Middle East. The outbreak of the war was
hailed by some American secretaries of the Y.M.C.A.
working in India as presenting overwhelming opportunities
for their proselytising agenda. Indeed, the global conflict
massively enlarged the organisation’s range of activities
among European soldiers stationed in South Asia and for
the first time extended it to the ‘Sepoys’, i.e. Indian and
Nepalese soldiers serving in the imperial army. Financially
supported by the Indian public as well as by the
governments of Britain and British India, the US-dominated
Indian Y.M.C.A. embarked on large-scale ‘army work’
programmes in the Indian subcontinent as well as in several
theatres of war almost from the outset, a fact that clearly
boosted its general popularity. This article addresses the
question of the effects the Y.M.C.A.’s army work schemes
had for the imperial war effort and tries to assess their
deeper societal and political impact as a means of
educating better citizens, both British and Indian. In doing
so, the article places particular emphasis on the activities of
American Y-workers, scrutinising to what extent pre-existing
imperial racial and cultural stereotypes influenced their
perception of and engagement with the European and
South Asian soldiers they wanted to transform into ‘better
civilians’.

This essay highlights an oft-neglected facet of M.K. Gandhi's political work by scrutinizing the ... more This essay highlights an oft-neglected facet of M.K. Gandhi's political work by scrutinizing the anti-colonial icon's extended engagement in campaigns against alcohol, narcotics, prostitution and a number of other 'vices ' between 1906 and 1948. It argues that, while the Mahatma's anti-vice crusades definitely were part and parcel of his vision of 'inner swaraj' (or: self-control) as a necessary precondition for national independence, they cannot be understood by situating them merely in narrow national or colonial contexts. As is demonstrated, Gandhi was constantly drawing on (and simultaneously contributing to) the ideological and methodological repertoire of a flourishing transnational, indeed, global, network of temperance and purity activists that had been in the building since the midnineteenth century and cut across a wide political, social and religious spectrum. Hence, a close analysis of Gandhi's fight against intoxication and debauchery on the Indian subcontinent does not only shed new light on the formation of Indian massnationalism in early 20 th century, it also enhances our knowledge of one of the first world-spanning 'advocacy groups'.

Journal of Global History, 2024

Around 20 cyclists from India embarked on long and arduous intercontinental journeys between 1923... more Around 20 cyclists from India embarked on long and arduous intercontinental journeys between 1923 and 1942 individually or in groups. Many of these 'globe cyclists', as they were often referred to by the Indian press, later wrote media articles and longer travelogues about their expeditions. This article examines the narratives of these long-distance cycling expeditions to argue that these journeys can illuminate new histories of the bicycle's socio-cultural impact beyond the West, the self-fashioning of Indian cyclotourists as an example of complicit masculinity, and world tours as a novel form of anti-imperial counter-mobility. It does so by drawing on several historiographical subfields that have hitherto rarely been mobilized together, namely the histories of sports, masculinity, colonialism and decolonization, tourism, and (everyday) technology. The article focuses pars pro toto on the tours of Adi Hakim, Jal Bapasola, and Rustom Bhumgara (1923-1928) and Ramnath Biswas (1931-1940) that were strongly over-determined by the contexts of colonialism, anti-colonialism, and decolonisation, while nationalist masculinity represented another recurring trope.

Asian Review of World Histories, 2017

Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 2022

The Bombay Talkies Limited, 2021

European Seamen as a Problem of Colonial Identity and Order in Calcutta of the 1860s The relation... more European Seamen as a Problem of Colonial Identity and Order in Calcutta of the 1860s The relationship between the wealthier part of British India's white society and the infamous seaman 'Jack Tar' was ambiguous. In the eyes of the colonial administration the seamen's alleged lack of discipline and 'reckless and irrational ways' brought them close to the 'uncivilised natives'. This was a fact regarded as highly disturbing in a colonial setting based on the ideology of racial difference and — at least partly — informed by notions of a civilising mission supposedly entrusted to the British by providence. The problems arising from their presence in Indian seaport towns could not be easily solved by the 'politics of making invisible', as their labour was vital to the empire. Their position was therefore a highly ambivalent one, vacillating between inclusion and exclusion into the fold of 'respectable' white colonial society. In certain cont...

The article explores Asianist discourses that emerged in India from the late9th century through t... more The article explores Asianist discourses that emerged in India from the late9th century through the first decade after independence. The first section gives a general overview of the various historical stages of the Indian involvement with Asia during the period under survey as expressed in the writings and speeches of leading intellectuals and politicians. The second section analyses in greater detail three of the most important discursive constructions of a pan-Asian identity from the interwar period: Rabindranath Tagore's influential anti-modernist conception of 'Asia as spiritual counter-Europe'; the powerful trope of Asia as 'Greater India', that gained particular popularity among Hindu nationalist outfits; and the pragmatic and modernist concept of Young Asia', that posited a pan-Asian solidarity as a strategic device in the fight against Western imperialism. With the possible exception of the 'Young Asia' model, it is argued by way of conclusio...

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2021

This introductory essay provides an overview of the main subfields of research into the histories... more This introductory essay provides an overview of the main subfields of research into the histories of foodstuffs, diet and nutrition in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Asia, thus situating the contributions to this themed special section in wider historiographical debates and controversies. It argues that the bulk of existing research has focused either on the conflictual role of food and diet in the colonial encounter, or on the emergence of nutritional sciences in India (and in the countries providing food aid to India) during the post-colonial phase in response to the protracted recurrence of food scarcity in the subcontinent. It subsequently identifies a research lacuna by pointing to the conspicuous absence of historical studies on Dalits and food in spite of the topic’s obvious relevance for the creation and maintenance of social hierarchies. The article ends with short previews of the individual essays assembled in this collection.

The cultural history of youth, Vol. 5, 2023

3.4 Printer and his apprentice, putting on the ink on the pre-made etched stone, 1876 68 3.5 The ... more 3.4 Printer and his apprentice, putting on the ink on the pre-made etched stone, 1876 68 3.5 The Shepherdess, by Jean Francois Millet, 1864 71 3.6 Cotton spinning at Dean Mills, Manchester, 1851 74 4.1 Cricket match between Eton and Winchester at the Winchester public school, c. 1864 84 4.2 Elite sports as spaces of interracial encounter: mixed polo team in Hyderabad, India, c. 1890 87 4.3 Turnen (calisthenics) instruction at a school for "natives" in Tanga, German East Africa, c. 1910 89 4.4 Hurling match organized by the GAA in Dublin's Croke Park Stadium, c. 1921 91 4.5 Masculinity check?-YMCA-trained "physical director" with Indian College Student, c. 1920 94 4.6 This card accompanied a lantern slide show on the YMCA's International youth work in the 1920s. The purpose of such cards was to remind the presenter of the messages he or she was expected to convey to the audience with each picture 95 5.1 Emile, from Jean Jacques Rousseau's Emile, or On Education. Here Emile is seen with his wife to be, Sophie. From Les Maitres De La Sensibilite Francaise Au Xviii Siecle. 107 5.2 A coster boy and girl tossing the pieman in a market, London, England. From a daguerreotype by Beard. From London Labour and London Poor by Henry Mayhew (an illustrated report in Morning Chronicle in 1849; in book form in several editions up to 1865) 112 6.1 Enslaved people in Zanzibar, including children and youth, c. 1880 121 9781350033054_txt_prf.indd 8 30-06-2022 15:37:22 ILLUSTRATIONS ix 6.2 Color print depicting two men of African descent (presumably slaves) wearing blue and red uniforms, but no shoes, carrying poles supporting a small red and black litter or sedan chair, with a white woman peering out, a small boy in uniform walks ahead of the party, with urban buildings and a paved square in the background, from the volume "

The Routledge Handbook of the History of Colonialism in South Asia, 2022

There is perhaps no better example to illustrate a particularly striking variety of the manifold ... more There is perhaps no better example to illustrate a particularly striking variety of the manifold transnational entanglements that characterise South Asia's recent past than the history of the subcontinental fi lm industry under the Raj. Although border-crossing interaction, transcultural cross-fertilisation, and global circulation play a key role in this story, fi lm critics and cultural historians have time and again pointed to the unique cultural coding of movies produced in the subcontinent, positing their quintessentially 'Indian' character. 1 Even though this kind of cultural essentialism is always problematic, the momentous impact South Asian cultural and historical specifi cities had on the modes of production and content of popular Indian drama and cinema can hardly be denied. After all, we are talking about a cinematic industry whose products drew heavily on local cultural repositories such as religious epics and motives inspired by regional history. Besides, it catered overwhelmingly to a domestic market during the fi rst fi ve decades of its existence. The topic thus off ers a unique opportunity to analyse how the complex interplay between domestic and colonial cultural, political, and economic constellations and developments, on the one hand, and broader global factors, on the other, led to the creation of an idiosyncratic and strikingly original form of cultural expression and mass cultural consumption. This chapter provides a survey of the development of 'Bombay' cinema with a short excursion to its theatrical predecessor, so-called 'Parsi theatre'. The term 'Bombay cinema' refers to the fi lm industry set in today's Mumbai, specialised in producing 'commercial' feature fi lms. Whereas silent movies were exhibited to a pan-Indian audience, most Bombay fi lm producers focused on movies with dialogue in an accessible Hindi/ Hindustani after the introduction of the 'talkie' (or sound fi lm) in the early 1930s. Simultaneously, they integrated Hindustani song sequences into their (often melodramatic) narrative plots. 2 That the focus on the Hindi cinema is a pars pro toto approach needs to be emphasised. Right from the beginning of the talkie era, there were vibrant Bengali and Marathi fi lm industries. 3 At the same time, movies in the Dravidian languages of the south, such as Tamil and Telugu, were extremely popular in their respective language communities, and continued to be so even after the meteoric rise of 'Bollywood' in independent India. 4

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2021

and longstanding executive director of the university's South Asia Institute. In addition, throug... more and longstanding executive director of the university's South Asia Institute. In addition, through countless interviews in the media and a number of non-academic publications targeted at a broad readership, he was known to a wider public in Germany as an expert on South Asia. On yet another level, Dietmar Rothermund served the cause of fostering interest in the Indian subcontinent and its history as a networker, institution builder and academic manager both in his native Germany and internationally. A long and prolific career Dietmar Rothermund was born on 20 January 1933, precisely at the juncture when Germany was about to enter the darkest phase of its history. He started his studies of history and philosophy in Marburg and Munich in the 1950s, during the dull, early postWar era, when the shadows of the Hitler regime were still looming large over most walks of German life-including academia-although very few people talked about it. Thus, for instance, the Nazi past of Rothermund's later mentor, the prominent social historian Werner Conze (1910-86), became a matter of public debate only in the 1990s, more than a decade after Conze's death. 1 It was from this constraining intellectual climate of the Adenauer era that Dietmar Rothermund escaped to the University of Pennsylvania on a Fulbright fellowship in 1956. While in Philadelphia, his interest in American history grew more intense, which led him to stay on and write a PhD thesis on the interplay between religion and politics in mid eighteenth-century Pennsylvania. After the publication of the book based on his thesis, 2 Rothermund seemed to be on track for a career as a specialist in US history. It was rather by coincidence that on his return to Germany in 1959, a stipend from the German Research

South Asia: Journal of South Asian History, 2021

preading Protestant Modernity: Global Perspectives on the Work of the YMCA and the YWCA, 1889 – 1970, edited by Fischer-​Tiné, Harald, Huebner, Stefan and Tyrrell, Ian, pp. 1-​36, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, , 2020

Journal of Asian Studies, 2020

Empires and Boundaries Race, Class, and Gender in Colonial Settings, ed, H. Fischer-Tiné & Susanne Gehrmann (London: Routledge), 2008

Modern Asian Studies, 25 Sep , 2018

Focusing particularly on the Madras College of Physical Education opened in 1919, this article re... more Focusing particularly on the Madras College of Physical Education opened in 1919, this article reconstructs the role of the United States of America-dominated Indian Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in the spread of physical-education schemes in South Asia between the beginning of the century and the outbreak of the Second World War. American YMCA secretaries stressed the scientific, liberal, and egalitarian character of their 'physical programme' aiming at the training of responsible and self-controlled citizens and therefore supposedly offering an alternative to British imperial sports. The study demonstrates that the Y indeed exercised a considerable influence by acting as adviser to provincial and 'princely' governments as well as through the graduates of the Madras College of Physical Education (MCPE), many of whom became physical directors in educational institutions in India, Burma, Ceylon and other Asian countries. At the same time, it also makes clear that North American models could not be transplanted in a simple or straightforward manner to South Asian contexts. For one, in spite of its representation as a 'school for democracy', the Y's supposedly inclusive and emancipatory discourses and practices of physical fitness remained over-determined by the powerful influences of the colonial discourse of race, and the programme of the Indian Y continued to be rife with the imperial tropes Ligtenberg as well as Modern Asian Studies' anonymous reviewers for reading earlier drafts and making valuable suggestions for the improvement of the text.

The article contributes to the global history of the First World War and the history of ‘imperia... more The article contributes to the global history of
the First World War and the history of ‘imperial
humanitarianism’ by taking stock of the Indian Young Men’s
Christian Association’s Army Work schemes in South Asia,
Europe and the Middle East. The outbreak of the war was
hailed by some American secretaries of the Y.M.C.A.
working in India as presenting overwhelming opportunities
for their proselytising agenda. Indeed, the global conflict
massively enlarged the organisation’s range of activities
among European soldiers stationed in South Asia and for
the first time extended it to the ‘Sepoys’, i.e. Indian and
Nepalese soldiers serving in the imperial army. Financially
supported by the Indian public as well as by the
governments of Britain and British India, the US-dominated
Indian Y.M.C.A. embarked on large-scale ‘army work’
programmes in the Indian subcontinent as well as in several
theatres of war almost from the outset, a fact that clearly
boosted its general popularity. This article addresses the
question of the effects the Y.M.C.A.’s army work schemes
had for the imperial war effort and tries to assess their
deeper societal and political impact as a means of
educating better citizens, both British and Indian. In doing
so, the article places particular emphasis on the activities of
American Y-workers, scrutinising to what extent pre-existing
imperial racial and cultural stereotypes influenced their
perception of and engagement with the European and
South Asian soldiers they wanted to transform into ‘better
civilians’.

This essay highlights an oft-neglected facet of M.K. Gandhi's political work by scrutinizing the ... more This essay highlights an oft-neglected facet of M.K. Gandhi's political work by scrutinizing the anti-colonial icon's extended engagement in campaigns against alcohol, narcotics, prostitution and a number of other 'vices ' between 1906 and 1948. It argues that, while the Mahatma's anti-vice crusades definitely were part and parcel of his vision of 'inner swaraj' (or: self-control) as a necessary precondition for national independence, they cannot be understood by situating them merely in narrow national or colonial contexts. As is demonstrated, Gandhi was constantly drawing on (and simultaneously contributing to) the ideological and methodological repertoire of a flourishing transnational, indeed, global, network of temperance and purity activists that had been in the building since the midnineteenth century and cut across a wide political, social and religious spectrum. Hence, a close analysis of Gandhi's fight against intoxication and debauchery on the Indian subcontinent does not only shed new light on the formation of Indian massnationalism in early 20 th century, it also enhances our knowledge of one of the first world-spanning 'advocacy groups'.

Fischer-​​Tiné, Harald, The YMCA in Late Colonial India: Modernization, Philanthropy and American Soft Power in South Asia (London: Bloomsbury Academic,)., 2022

The Routledge Handbook of the History of Colonialism in South Asia provides a comprehensive overv... more The Routledge Handbook of the History of Colonialism in South Asia provides a comprehensive overview of the historiographical specialisation and sophistication of the history of colonialism in South Asia. It explores the classic works of earlier generations of historians and offers an introduction to the rapid and multifaceted development of historical research on colonial South Asia since the 1990s. Covering economic history, political history, and social history and offering insights from other disciplines and 'turns' within the mainstream of history, the handbook is structured in six parts:

This book argues that the history of colonial empires has been shaped to a considerable extent by... more This book argues that the history of colonial empires has been shaped to a considerable extent by negative emotions such as anxiety, fear and embarrassment as well as by the regular occurrence of panics. The case studies it assembles examine the various ways in which panics and anxieties were generated in imperial situations and how they shook up the dynamics between seemingly all-powerful colonizers and the apparently defenceless colonized. Drawing from examples of the British, Dutch and German colonial experience, the volume sketches out some of the main areas (such as disease, native ‘savagery’ or sexual transgression) that generated panics or created anxieties in colonial settings and analyses the most common varieties of practical, discursive and epistemic strategies adopted by the colonisers to curb the perceived threats

Neue Zürcher Zeitung , 2020

Exportweltmeisterin, führende Wissenschaftsnation, internationale Finanz- und Rohstoffhandelsdreh... more Exportweltmeisterin, führende Wissenschaftsnation, internationale Finanz- und Rohstoffhandelsdrehscheibe und fast jede/r zweite BewohnerIn des Landes mit Migrationsvordergrund — die Schweiz ist eines der globalisiertesten Länder der Welt. Wie kam es dazu?

Diese Veranstaltung bringt HistorikerInnen, KulturwissenschaftlerInnen, PolitikerInnen sowie Vertretende von Verbänden und NGOs zusammen, um einen frischen Blick auf die Geschichte und Gegenwart eines Landes zu wagen, das jenseits seiner aussenpolitischen Neutralität schon seit Jahrhunderten eng mit der Welt verflochten ist. Im Kern geht es um die Frage, wie Gegenwart und Zukunft der Schweiz zu verstehen sind, wenn wir den globalisierten Zustand des Landes nicht als neues, sondern als historisches Phänomen betrachten. Welches Licht werfen die historischen Verwicklungen der Schweiz in den transatlantischen Sklavenhandel, die koloniale Plantagenökonomie, „die Rassenforschung“ und die Missionierung von „Heiden“ in Übersee auf die gegenwärtige Finanz- und Wirtschaftspolitik, die Migrations-, Gleichstellungs- und Arbeitsmarktpolitik, oder die Entwicklungszusammenarbeit und die Sozialpolitik?

Den Auftakt macht die US-amerikanischen Anthropologin und Historikerin Ann Laura Stoler mit eine Keynote Lecture über das fortwirkende Erbe des europäischen Imperialismus in der globalisierten Gegenwart. Am Tag danach folgen Panels, Roundtables und jede Menge Diskussionen.

Das aktuelle Geschichtsheft der NZZ ignoriert aktuelle Forschung, präsentiert falsche Fakten und ... more Das aktuelle Geschichtsheft der NZZ ignoriert aktuelle Forschung, präsentiert falsche Fakten und retuschiert historische Quellen

Comparativ, 2020

After revisiting transnationally oriented historiography from within a regional South Asian ambit... more After revisiting transnationally oriented historiography from within a regional South Asian ambit, this article makes a plea for a very specific take on global history-writing that promises to appeal especially to historians who have learned to value dense regional / cultural contextualisation. . Comparativ | Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung, forthcoming (2020) Heft ?, pp. 49-74.