Personen

Dr. Anandita Bajpai

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin

Telefon: +49-(0)30-80307-249
Regionaler Schwerpunkt: Südasien, besonders Indien; Beziehungen und Verflechtungen zwischen der DDR, der BRD und Indien
Dr. Anandita Bajpai
Dr. Anandita Bajpai

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
Lecturer, 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 - Oc10/2015
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%).

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

  • Leibniz Collaborative Excellence Funding 2023-26 (Leibniz Competition 2023)
  • 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.

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

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.

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: E. Emery, M. Hines and E. Preuß (eds.), The GDR Tomorrow: Rethinking the East German Legacy, Oxford: Peter Lang, 2024, pp. 279–310.

"Friendship Through Ether Waves: Radio Berlin International And Its Listening Publics In India", Internationale Forschungsstelle DDR, 2023 (auch auf Deutsch: https://ifddr.org/aetherwellen-der-freundschaft-radio-berlin-international-und-seine-hoererschaft-in-indien/, 04.10.2023).

Material Lives of Cold War Radio Pasts in India” in: Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television: 2023.

"Herzliche Wellelängen: Radio Berlin International in Indien zur Zeit des Kalten Krieges". in: M. Mann (Hg.), Modernes Indien in Deutschen Archiven (MIDA): Im Memoriam Dietmar Rothermund Draupadi Verlag, 2022, Heidelberg.

“‘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. https://www.projekt-mida.de/reflexicon/introduction/

Bajpai, A., Tracing, Cataloguing, Indexing: Reflections on the Joachim and Petra Heidrich papers in the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient Archive”, MIDA Archival Reflexicon, 2018. https://www.projekt-mida.de/reflexicon/tracing-cataloguing-indexing-reflections-on-the-joachim-and-petra-heidrich-papers-in-the-leibniz-zentrum-moderner-orient-archive/

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/

Reviews

Book Review, Mathur, Nayanika, Paper Tiger: Law Bureaucracy and the Developmental State, in: South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2018.

Book Review, Duff, Andrew, Sikkim. Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom, Edinburgh: Birlinn 2015, in: Sehepunkte 16(9): 2016.

Book ReviewSchneider, Nadja-Christina and Titzmann, Fritzi-Marie (eds.), Studying Youth, Media and Gender in Post-Liberalization India: Focus on and beyond the ‘Delhi Gang Rape, Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2015, in: Bulletin of the Zentrum für transdisziplinäre Geschlechterstudien, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2015.

Forschungsbericht, “Modern India in German Archives, 1706-1989, Inaugural Project Workshop”, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 2015.

Forschungsbericht, “Modern India in German Archives, 1706-1989, Inaugural Project Workshop”, in: ZMO: Orient Bulletin, 28, 2015, pp. 3-4.

Book Review, Vora, N., Impossible Citizens: Dubai's Indian Diaspora, Duke University Press, 2013, in:  South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2014.

Book Review, Hilger, A.; Unger, C.R. (eds.): India in the World since1947. National and Transnational PerspectivesFrankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2012; in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 2014.

Book Review, Harshan Kumarasingham, A Political Legacy of the British Empire: Power and the Parliamentary System in Post-Colonial India and Sri Lanka, I.B. Tauris, London, 2013, in: South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 36(2): 2013, pp. 314-316.

Book Review, Sharma, S.D., China and India in the Age of Globalization, Cambridge University Press, 2009, in: Political Studies Review, 9(3): 2011.

Film Project

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

Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4qLiM_jflw

(Direction, Archival Research, Story, Co-Production– Anandita Bajpai /Camera and Cinematography– Daniel Gatzmaga, Camera and conceptualization– Jyothidaas KV, co-production ZMO)

The documentary film traces the trajectory of Radio Berlin International (RBI), a GDR based international radio broadcaster, from the perspective of its journalists and listeners, based in present day Germany and India. It takes viewers from locales in Berlin, where the station was located, to Madhepura, Bihar in India where a Listeners’ Club called the Lenin Club was active. How were transnational ties of friendship performed among actors from India and the GDR through the sonic medium of short waves during the Cold War? How are those ties remembered today, 30 years after the shutdown of the station?

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

Lectures/Papers at Workshops and Conferences

2018Present

  • The Inter-Image: Transgenerational Conversations with Material Internationalisms, Public lecture at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (with Prof. Dr. Doreen Mende), May 12, 2024, https://www.hkw.de/programme/echos-der-bruderlaender/the-inter-image.
  • Warum Heute? Verflechtungen der DDR mit der Welt, Panelist at Public Panel organized by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD), Hermann-Glöckner-Saal, Albertinum, April 26, 2024.
  • Modern India in German Archives 1706-1989 (MIDA), Public Lecture at launch event of the MIDA Research Portal and presentation of research paper, organized by the  MIDA-Project and Max Weber Forum, New Delhi March 21 and  22, 2024.
  • Material Resonances of Radio Shortwaves from the Cold War: International Broadcasters and their Listening Publics in India, Paper presented at conference "'Sound, Text, Context: Artistic and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Aurality" organized by Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin, February 15, 2024.
  • Tuning in to Radio’s Hidden Archives in South Asia, Paper presented at the Presidential Round Table, Annual Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS), Boston, March 18, 2023.
  • Warm Wavelengths in the Cold War, Public Talk at Art Gallery Under the Mango Tree, as part of the India Salon Series 2022, Berlin November 25, 2022.
  • ‘Seeing’ and ‘Feeling’ Radio-Pasts in India: Fragments from Forgotten, Forbidden and Hidden Archives, Paper presented at the Minor Cosmopolitanisms Assembly, organized by Research Training Group Minor Cosmopolitanisms, Universität Potsdam, November 10, 2022.
  • The Sound of Friendship: Warm Wavelengths in a Cold, Cold War, Film Screening and Discussion at the Minor Cosmopolitanisms Assembly, organized by Research Training Group Minor Cosmopolitanisms, Universität Potsdam, November 11, 2022.
  • The Sound of Friendship: Warm Wavelengths in a Cold, Cold War, Film Screening and Discussion at the South Asia Institute, University of Texas, Austin, September 8, 2022.
  • Tuning in to ‘things’ of the Past: Radio Berlin International and its Memory Regimes in Cold War India, Paper at the 100. Deutscher Orientalisten Tag (DOT), Freie Universität Berlin, September 12, 2022.
  • The Sound of Friendship: Warm Wavelengths in a Cold, Cold War, Film Discussion at the Center for the History of Emotions, Max-Planck-Institut for Human Development, Berlin, July 20, 2022.
  • Tuning in’ to the Cold War: Objects and Radio-pasts in India, Presentation at International Conference “Ruling the Waves: Transnational Radio Broadcasting in the Middle East and the Mediterranean between Production and Reception, 1920-1970”, German Historical Institute, Rome, June 24, 2022.
  • Cordial Cold War: Cultural Actors in India and the German Democratic Republic, Book Launch & The Sound of Friendship: Warm Wavelengths in a Cold, Cold War, Film Screening at the India Habitat Centre (IHC), organized by the ICAS: MP (M.S. Merian – R. Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies /Metamorphoses of the Political), New Delhi, March 28, 2022.
  • Introducing the MIDA Researchportal, Presentation at Symposium “Modern India in German Archives (MIDA): Digital Archiving and New Directions in Research”, History Department, Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University, January 27, 2022.
  • The Sound of Friendship: Warm Wavelengths of Radio Berlin International during the Cold War years in India, Paper Presentation at the 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies (ECSAS), Panel “The History of Emotions as a New Disciplinary Direction for South Asian Studies”, Vienna, July 28, 2021.
  • Warm Wavelengths in the Cold War: Radio Berlin International and its ‘Objects of Love’ in India, Lecture in Colloquium Series “Listening In: Sounds of South Asian History”, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, June 29, 2021.
  • 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.

 

20162017 (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.

Conferences/Papers (Selected)

2018 - 2019

Organization (Conferences and Workshops)

  • 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 10th 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 27th 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 28th 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 29th 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 12th 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.

Language Skills

  • English- Fluent, Academic level. All academic degrees accomplished with English as the medium of instruction.
  • Hindi -Mother Tongue.
  • Urdu- Fluent in speaking
  • German- Very Good, Appeared for the Deutsche Sprachprüfung für den Hochschulzugang DSH, September 18, 2009. Score- DSH 3 (above 80%)